Court’s Congressional map pick keeps south central Pennsylvania House districts largely intact

The 10th, 11th, 9th and 13th districts remain largely intact.

• Charles Thompson/PennLive
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  Thompson has covered state government for The Patriot since 1999. Prior to that, he had covered various Cumberland County municipalities and school districts. Thompson lives in Carlisle with his wife, Beth, and their two children.

For voters in South Central Pennsylvania, the good news from the Congressional map chosen by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Wednesday is that it will keep the vast majority of them in the same district in this year’s election cycle.

If it survives coming challenges, the so-called “Carter plan” keeps the basic framework of the 10th, 11th, 9th and 13th districts largely intact:

• The 10th District will consist of all of Dauphin County, most of Cumberland County from about Newville east, and the City of York most parts of York County north of that.
• The 11th District continues to cover all of Lancaster County and the fast-growing southern end of York County.
• Lebanon County will remain the southern end of the 9th District, though that district will now extend much farther north to the New York state line.

The biggest change will be for voters in Perry, Juniata and Mifflin counties, all of whom will be flipped from the current 12th District to form the eastern end of the 13th District, which already includes Adams, Franklin and the western portion of Cumberland County.

This map, submitted by a group of Democratic voters who started this court case late last year, has been described by its creator Jonathan Rodden as a “least change” proposal that takes the existing Congressional map and makes adjustments based solely on the population shifts since the 2010 Census.

The Carter group had argued that its map – which keeps more Pennsylvanians in their existing district (86.6 percent) than any of the alternative plans – should get the court’s edge because it applies the new census results with the least disruption to the 2018 map, which the Supreme Court at that time found “superior or comparable” to all plans submitted in that groundbreaking anti-gerrymandering case.

The Carter petitioners said partisan data was not considered in the drawing of their plan, though their expert did analyze the partisanship of his and the other submitted plans after they were drawn.

By far the most politically competitive district in south central Pennsylvania would be the 10th, currently held by York County Republican Scott Perry. Rodden described the 10th as one of two Republican-leaning districts that are “potentially competitive” based on recent voter performance.

The 9th, 11th and 13th all continue to skew highly Republican under the new plan.

As things stand, none of the incumbent Congressmen in south central Pennsylvania would be forced into races against another incumbent, though in north central Pennsylvania, incumbent Reps. Fred Keller and Glenn Thompson are combined, as Keller’s existing 12th District is carved up to add population into several adjacent districts.

Thompson’s 15th District shifts to the east and picks up Snyder County, where Keller resides.

Keller, however, said in a release announcing his intent to seek re-election Wednesday that he expects to run for the 9th District seat, which sits just across the Susquehanna River from Snyder, and includes Northumberland County, where Snyder attended Shickellamy High School. The 9th District is currently represented by Rep. Dan Meuser, of Luzerne County, who is also expected to seek re-election this year.

Keeping the 10th District intact had been a goal of many regional civic leaders in the state Capitol region.

The district had been the district carved up and appended to its neighbors in most of the competing plans

Harrisburg Regional Chamber wrote a letter to state lawmakers in December specifically asking for preservation of the current 10th, pointing to the federal government’s longtime definition of Dauphin, Cumberland and Perry counties as a statistical metropolitan area, traditional commuting and employment patterns and population growth since 2010 that warrants keeping the seat intact.

Chamber CEO Ryan Unger told PennLive earlier this winter he’s worked in areas with both fractured leadership and a single voice, and he personally prefers the latter.

“There’s only a finite amount of time, resources and support,” Unger said, adding he’s come to believe having a single representative to work with is helpful both for the representative and the region being served, and “it does lead to stronger constituent support and attention to these issues that are most important here.”

Correspondent John Beauge contributed to this report.