Well, first and foremost, the R’s are not happy with Mike Ramone being placed in Paul Baumbach’s district. House Minority Leader Danny Short spoke to that, as did several of Ramone’s constituents. Schwartzkopf gave some mumbo-jumbo about the numbers and how they had no choice. Except–Ramone is right on the district boundary. Both the ACLU and Common Cause pointed out that several incumbents who lived right near their district boundaries were drawn in to their existing districts and, in fact, argued that ‘edge incumbents’ should not be protected. I don’t care either way. Except it should be one or the other. I wouldn’t be totally surprised if Ramone gets drawn back into the 21st, just to forestall a floor battle on November 1, which is the scheduled date for the vote on the maps.
I spoke and maintained that Val Longhurst should be held accountable to the voters in Delaware City. She has had Delaware City excised from her district despite being a primary cause of the huge redevelopment project there. I pointed out that Nicole Poore kept Delaware City, and that Longhurst should as well.
A speaker noted that a portion of RD 8 had been excised from the district despite the fact that, like most of the RD, the excised portion is within the Middletown municipal boundaries. The section has been placed in RD 11, which goes all the way southwest to Marydel.
And, that’s about it.