PA House Map - K.Rust-November2021
View Map on Dave's Redistricting (https://davesredistricting.org/join/b494a375-a6e1-446d-9280-d5b938b2e85a)
My PA House map uses population data with prisoners reallocated to their home precincts. I would note that my map has a population deviation of 6.04%, well within the limits allowed by courts, and smaller than the 8% deviation on the Fair Districts People's map. Most districts on my map have some of the same turf that the same-numbered district has on the current PA house map. A few districts (including HD 8, HD 19, HD 59, HD 85, HD 123, HD 124) moved to a different part of the state to account for population shifts. My map not only follows generally accepted principles of good, fair map making, but it also minimizes pitting incumbents against one another. In the past, incumbents have sometimes been pitted against other incumbents as a way for map drawers to disadvantage their political enemies. And I know members of the Redistricting Commission wish to avoid the appearance of doing this. While there are instances in my map where incumbents are drawn into a new district with another incumbent, I carefully avoided pitting any incumbents against the 16 House Democratic and Republican party leaders, the 24 members of the Government Committee, the members of the Allegheny County delegation, all but two of the Philadelphia delegation, and many other incumbents. I prioritized the creation of minority opportunity districts, and my focus was on creating strong Black and Latino Districts. Many groups have produced maps that focus on "coalition" districts. I did not prioritize the creation of coalition districts, as I have found "coalition districts" to be of little interest to Black and Latino activists I have worked with, who are experienced in electoral politics. I have prioritized avoiding municipal splits ahead of avoiding county or district splits. I avoided "fracking" in the map, however avoiding the fracking counties sometimes meant that I had to split municipalities.