Draw the Lines PA supports the prelim House plan
Draw the Lines PA is a nonpartisan, statewide education initiative around how Pennsylvania draws its voting districts. Since 2018, we've engaged over 7,200 Pennsylvanians in drawing their own congressional and legislative districts. Accordingly, we've learned a fair amount about what average Pennsylvanians want out of the redistricting process. Learn more at drawthelinespa.org. We recognize that there is no such thing as a perfect map. However, the preliminary State House plan is a significant improvement over the current map. It splits fewer counties -- 45; the current map splits 50 -- and fewer municipalities -- 61 to 77. The preliminary plan is more compact, by 3 to 7%, depending on the metric. While it gives a slight advantage to Republicans, it is far more balanced (2.9% more favorable to Republicans) than the current one (6.8% more favorable to the GOP). It also creates seven districts without a current incumbent where voters of color make up a sizable voting bloc and could elect a new state representative. Some weaknesses: it has a wide population variance; the largest district is about 9.3% more populated than the smallest. It also has fewer competitive districts, a trade-off understandably made to improve on the constitutionally required criteria like compactness and minimizing splits and to ensure broader statewide partisan fairness. There are significantly more incumbent Republican representatives bunked together in the same district (seven pairings, versus one for Democrats), though much of this can be explained by the expansion of rural districts held by Republicans that lost population over the last decade. While we would support changes requested by specific communities to improve local representation, we think the LRC has a strong start with its preliminary House plan.