I approve of the Proposed House Map
As someone who lives in a heavily gerrymandered suburban township, I am writing to a) express my support and appreciation for chairman Nordenberg's even-handed approach to drawing new maps. The proposed House map, while still favoring Republicans, is much better than the one from a decade ago; and b) urge the chairman and everyone on the LRC to stand their ground against the baseless attacks by some Republican house members. The Republican clamor that the proposed map is unfair is an insult to Pennsylvanians - I've been living within a gerrymandered district for a decade, and now they complain that the proposed new map is, basically, not gerrymandered enough in their favor. The fact is that Pennsylvania's population has shifted, and the proposed map reflects that. Proposing a constitutional amendment to devise a way to throw out a good map and replace it with a bad one is not a solution in the interests of the majority of Pennsylvanians. It is a solution for a party that does not want to bother coming up with candidates and policies relevant to urban voters and people of color. In short, the proposed map is fine. The proposed PA House map does a good job of balancing priorities. It performs far better than the current PA House map by almost every metric used to measure map fairness. It creates a few new districts without incumbents-- a good thing for those local neighborhoods that have been poorly represented in the past. It creates districts that make much more sense for the people who live in them. Let's get it approved so the candidates can have sufficient time to canvass before the primary.