SR 105-05: Philly Metro Area Belongs Together Amendment (Rejected)

[S019]

This is pretty straight forward, this would move Delaware to Lincoln, where it seems to fit better. Delaware is a culturally northern state, closely tied culturally to the Philadelphia metro area and South Jersey. There's really no reason for it to be in the South, ideally Maryland would move to the North too. I really find it hard to argue that anything north of Fredericksburg, VA is culturally southern, it's even harder to argue that Delaware, with its population heavily concentrated in sprawling New Castle County is a southern state. This is merely correcting for a misinterpretation of communities of interest. Delaware really has little in common with Southern states other than Maryland and maybe parts of Virginia (such as NoVA), on the other hand, it is closely tied to places like Pennsylvania and New Jersey and its sprawling, urban nature resembles that of the cities and suburbs on the I-95 corridor to its north. This is an egregiously wrong pairing that should be corrected, and this amendment seeks to do that.

[S019]

Objection, though I am open to supporting some of these changes, but I'd like the original change of Delaware to remain.

[S019]

NAY

[S019]

I would like to know what type of community of interest is represented by New Jersey and Tennessee, anyways obvious objection to that amendment.

[S019]

I would like to know what type of community of interest is represented by New Jersey and Tennessee, anyways obvious objection to that amendment.

It achieves the exact same aim that the Delaware move would do. Philly metro being together.

Yes, but it breaks other COI in the process. This honestly reminds me of the arguments during the Michigan redistricting meetings, where they went out of their way to preserve the COI of 6,000 Bengali Michiganders, and in the process completely wrecked the Bay Cities-Saginaw-Flint corridor. Besides, most importantly, the argument here is that Delaware is a northern state, which well it is (Maryland is too), New Jersey and Pennsylvania are not southern states by any definition of the word. I still have yet to hear a good argument for why Delaware belongs in the South. It is clearly not culturally southern, in facts parts of the Midwest, particularly Appalachian Ohio and rural Indiana are far more culturally southern than Delaware at this point. Delaware is a state where most of its population lives in a pretty dense urban corridor and is also a site for major corporations, really not too much unlike Connecticut. Also it goes without saying but it just lacks southern culture in general, even if Virginia may not be exactly southern nowadays, it still has plenty of areas with southern culture, Delaware really does not.

[S019]

NAY

[S019]

AYE