Good government groups call for redistricting reform; Sen. Pileggi says he agrees
Leaders from a trio of government reform groups called on the General Assembly to reform the redistricting process in Pennsylvania and end gerrymandering.
The League of Women Voters (LWV), Common Cause Pennsylvania and Democracy Rising Pennsylvania held a joint news conference Thursday at the state Capitol to fire pre-emptive shots at what they called a “flawed system” for redistricting which is “seriously in need of reform.” They proposed a series of changes aimed at making the process more transparent, non-partisan and non-political.
Every 10 years, following the national census, the state legislature redraws legislative districts for members of the U.S. House, the state House and the state Senate.
From left to right: Barry Kauffman of Common Cause Pennsylvania,Lora Lavin of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania (LWV-PA), Tim Potts of Democracy Rising Pennsylvania and Olivia Thorne of the LWV-PA.
Olivia Thorne, president of the LWV of Pennsylvania, said redistricting will be the most politically contentious issue facing Pennsylvania in 2011. The LWV is urging lawmakers to make all data used in drafting the redistricting plan open to the public and encouraging the mapmakers to disregard information such as voter registration changes, voting history and demographic shifts.
“Today we challenge those controlling the redistricting process to put in place procedures that will make the process open and transparent, and adopt criteria that will create maps that are fair to both parties and put the interest of voters first,” said Ms. Thorne.
Barry Kauffman, executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania, said the process is an “incumbency protection program” which undermines voters’ power over their government.
“The system has been gamed into one where the representatives pick their voters instead of the voters picking their representatives,” said Mr. Kauffman. He also called for a constitutional amendment to further define the procedure before the 2021 redistricting, with the goal of making the process independent and non-partisan.
The congressional map must be approved by both houses of the General Assembly and by governor-elect Tom Corbett. Mr. Corbett is a Republican and Republicans hold the majority in both chambers. The state constitution mandates only that districts should have equal number of residents, should be contiguous and should not divide existing municipalities into separate districts.
A commission of five individuals is responsible for redrawing the state House and state Senate districts. The commission is comprised of the four legislative caucus leaders – House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R-Allegheny), House Minority Leader Frank Dermody (D-Allegheny), Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R-Delaware) and Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa (D-Allegheny) – and a fifth member appointed by the other four.
If the four leaders cannot agree on the fifth member of the commission, the state Supreme Court makes an appointment.
The five-member commission has the final word on the map, which does not need to be approved by the General Assembly or the governor. The state Supreme Court can entertain challenges to the final map, but Mr. Kauffman said it rarely interferes because the court views redistricting as a political process in a separate branch of government.
In an effort to convince legislative leaders to make the process more transparent, the LWV met with Mr. Pileggi earlier this week to discuss their proposals. Ideally, the redistricting process would be carried out by an independent non-partisan commission following clear guidelines, said Ms. Thorne.
Erik Arneson, spokesperson for Mr. Pileggi, said the senator wants to hold four public hearings with the Legislative Reapportionment Commission before the final map is drafted. The senator also wants the commission to put all data used in the redistricting process on a website for the public to inspect.
Although Republicans appear poised to redraw districts to protect their majorities in both the state General Assembly and Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation, history suggests nothing is guaranteed.
Despite having full control of the redistricting process in 2001 and using their power to draw favorable districts, Republicans fell out of power in the state House by 2007, only regaining control of the chamber this year. Likewise, Democrats controlled a majority of Pennsylvania’s 19 congressional seats from 2007 until this year.
Dr. Terry Madonna, a pollster and professor of political science at Franklin and Marshall College, said the Republicans stretched themselves too thin in 2001 in an attempt to carve out two new Republican districts.
“They overreached and weakened their position in the Philly suburbs and ended up losing some of those districts as a result,” said Mr. Madonna. “They didn’t anticipate fully the change in the suburbs from being reasonably Republican to being more divided over the past decade.”
With Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation shrinking from 19 seats to 18 seats after the most recent census, Mr. Madonna said the GOP is unlikely to repeat the mistakes of 10 years ago. Instead of trying to expand Republican districts, the focus will be on cutting out one of the Democrats.
The most likely Republican targets are U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire, whose district runs from Pittsburgh to the Ohio border, U.S. Rep. Mark Critz in the southwest corner or U.S. Rep. Tim Holden in the mid-state region.
Mr. Kauffman said Common Cause may submit a different, “more constitutional” plan to the Supreme Court if the legislative map is gerrymandered.
