Some Chester, Montgomery county residents will be represented by Delaware, Lehigh county officials
By Eric Boehm | PA Independent
HARRISBURG — When the new state House district maps become official, some residents might feel like they’ve been moved not only to a new district, but to a different county.
On the proposed state House district maps that were unveiled Oct. 31, a district from Delaware County stretches an arm into West Chester, the seat of Chester County. A Lehigh County district reaches a finger into northern Montgomery County to capture three small boroughs, and similar situations are playing out statewide.
At a Wednesday meeting of the state Legislative Reapportionment Commission, residents of Chester County said the proposal to include part of West Chester in a district that lies almost entirely in a different county was unconstitutional.
West Chester, which is only 1.8 square miles, currently falls entirely within the state House’s 156th district, but would be divided on the new map between that district and the 160th, which primarily covers a portion of Delaware County on the current map.
Carolyn Comitta, mayor of West Chester, said the proposed changes would require some residents to drive about 40 minutes — and cross county lines — to reach their representative’s district office.
“It would be an anomaly for half of the borough, the seat of Chester County, to be moved to a Delaware County district,” Comitta said. “It is certainly not a good idea to split a county seat, especially one that is an urban center providing a myriad of essential services for the region."
State Rep. Dan Truitt, R-Chester, represents the 156th District, while state Rep. Stephen Barrar, R-Delaware, holds the 160th District seat.
The state legislative maps are redrawn every 10 years following the national census to reflect shifts in population and keep the number of residents in every legislative district balanced. After the new maps were made public, there is a 30-day period for public review and comment.
The commission consists of Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Chester; Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Allegheny; House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny; House Minority Leader Frank Dermody, D-Allegheny; and former state Superior Court Justice Stephen McEwen, a Delaware County Republican who was appointed by the state Supreme Court to be chairman of the commission.
Pileggi said the new maps were drawn with respect to the statewide view, which meant it was not always possible to keep some townships or communities united.
Costa argued that residents were concerned about being separated from their communities of interest by some of the new districts.
“It’s something that people do not want to see, and this commission should reflect those concerns,” he said.
But West Chester is not alone. In Montgomery County, the three small boroughs of East Greenville, Pennsburg and Red Hill — collectively about the same geographic size as West Chester — find themselves in a similar situation.
They have been cut from their current district and included in a small finger of the 131st District, which is represented by state Rep. Justin Simmons, R-Lehigh, and is almost entirely contained within neighboring Lehigh County.
Rather than being included in the same district with the rest of rural northern Montgomery County, the boroughs are included within the suburbs of Allentown and Bethlehem. The Montgomery County portion of the district will represent less than one-sixth of the district’s total population.
“The preliminary plan separates our business district from Montgomery County, the community we serve and the residents we rely on for a workforce,” said Luanne Stauffer, of the Upper Perkiomen Valley Chamber of Commerce, which represents businesses in that region of Montgomery County.
“It will be difficult even for the most attentive representatives to establish a strong presence and adequately serve our business and residential interests,” Stauffer said.
Elsewhere in Montgomery County, the borough of Pottstown is proposed to be divided between the 146th District of state Rep. Thomas Quigley and the 147th District of state Rep. Marcy Toepel.
The town now is entirely within Quigley’s district.
The same situation is playing out in Monroe County in the northeast part of the state. On the proposed maps, the county would be divided among five state representatives, with only one of those districts centered in the county and the others reaching across from neighboring Lackawanna, Luzerne and Pike counties.
Charles Leonard, executive director of the Pocono Mountain Economic Development Corp., which works to expand job growth and attract investment to the rapidly growing Monroe County region, said the county should only be divided among three state House districts, not four as it currently is or five as it will be next year.
“We feel like we’re going in the wrong direction,” said Leonard, who added that fewer representatives in the county would be good for residents, school districts and businesses.
Laura Lavin, a redistricting specialist with the Pennsylvania League of Women Voters, a nonprofit organization that encourages more open and transparent government, said divisions of towns and communities can have a negative impact on the constituent-lawmaker relationship.
“The more you split a township or any community in this way, the less attention the representatives have to pay to the local concerns, because they do not need those votes to get elected,” Lavin said.
Lavin applauded the commission for having a more transparent process than in previous decades, but said the proposed maps “don’t make much sense.”
