Centre County Fair Districts
Re: Centre Region Redistricting Results Date: January 13, 2021 To: Pennsylvania Legislative Reapportionment Commission Mark Nordenberg, Chair Kim Ward, Senate Majority Leader Jay Costa, Senate Minority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, House Majority Leader Joanna McClinton, House Minority Leader From: Dr. Peter Buck State College Area School District, Director (2021-2024) Democratic Candidate, House District 171 (2020) Ferguson Township, Fmr. Supervisor and Chair (2016-2019) Centre Region Council of Governments, Fmr. Representative (2016-2019) Dear Pennsylvania Legislative Reapportionment Commission, Thank you for your service on the Commission. Mr. Nordenberg, I am especially grateful to you for your time and dedication to principles of fairness, to fact-finding, to careful analysis, and to our Commonealth’s and nation’s Constitutions. To the partisans, thank you for your elected service and your dedication to ensuring that we have transparent process. I am a central Pennsylvania resident for 41 of my 45 years. To my knowledge, I have voted in every election since I turned 18. In the last 7 years, I have served in elected and appointed positions in municipal, regional, and school district government (referenced above). My comments are made as an informed servant, but not on behalf of any entity. Overall, the redistricted maps are much more fair and redress major issues. They observe principles of contiguousness and compactness, respect existing municipal or county boundaries except where to do so would result in unfairness, overlay with other borders including school districts, and have ensured that minority voices can be heard and their rights protected. They work well for Centre County’s next decade. As the Commission has heard from experts and citizens, the Commonwealth’s House District maps following the 2010 Census were severely gerrymandered. There are few places that show this more clearly than in the Centre Region and State College Area School District , overlapping and nearly coterminous incorporated political areas in southern Centre County. They contain College, Ferguson, Halfmoon, Harris, and Patton Townships, as well as the State College Borough. The previous gerrymander is most pronounced in Ferguson Township’s Ward 2 (that I represented on the Ferguson Board) and Ward 3 . Five of their voting precincts were split into what looks like a Lego tower between House Districts 77, 81, and 171, occupied by the House Majority Leader and Commission member Benninghoff. Precincts 48, 49, 50, 89, and 90’s historical voting data shows that citizens in the last decade voted for Democrats:Republicans by margins of roughly 2:1 to 5:3. Just under 4,000 people voted in 2020 General Election in the four precincts not contained in HD 171 , but are cracked into HD 77 and 81. These four carved out precincts create a clear violation of the compactness principle in district mapping when viewed in light of the full district. HD 171 extends into four townships in Mifflin County. These are Armagh, Brown, Decatur, and Union townships. Culturally, economically, and politically, these are practically different districts with very different preferences. To align their preferences, a fairer map maker could remove a similar size voter populations in Mifflin County, such as Armagh and Brown Townships, and add the above four Ferguson precincts. Doing so would have made HD 171 a competitive race in 2020 and previous cycles instead of an artificially hard Republican district. This exercise could continue. If we replace Mifflin County’s municipalities with Centre County municipalities to make them more compact, more contiguous, and more politically unified regarding existing governmental decision-making geographies the partisan make-up and policy preferences change, the Centre County district would be more aligned with the Centre Region and State College Area School District while the Mifflin District would be more aligned with the Mifflin County School District. Both such House Districts would readily work toward statewide fairness. The map proposed to the Commission does this. It increases the likelihood that Centre County, the Centre Region, and the State College Area School District will have representatives tuned into their political affiliations. The County will have three representatives instead of four, with only one District crossing a county boundary (171 into Mifflin). The Centre Region and State College Area School District will have two representatives—likely Scott Conklin in HD 77 and whoever wins the newly created HD 82—instead of three. These two districts eliminate the Ferguson gerrymander. Representative Benninghoff asked me a question at the Commission regarding the splitting of State College Borough. As I said, that partition and its “bridge” through Ferguson Township in tow contiguous precincts, is the only way to accomplish a balanced, compact, and contiguous House District that align with other bodies in the Region. They are eminently sensible. The Centre Region Council of Governments, Centre Region municipalities, and State College Area School District have communicated numerous issues to their legislators in recent years. Some of these have been ignored despite widespread support in the region. Issues have included, but not been limited to, charter school reforms, pricing carbon emissions and support for joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, as well as support for an independent redistricting commission. While there is no guarantee that any elected representative would necessarily follow through on these requests from local governments in Centre County, the proposed map before the Commission makes them more likely. Thank you again for this opportunity. It has been an honor to be a duly elected representative of my community and a servant to democracy. Dr. Peter Buck