Residents must stand up and eliminate gerrymandering

The national census being conducted this year is important in many respects, but the use of its population count results has perhaps the greatest single effect on American citizens. The census will be followed in 2021 by the Pennsylvania State Legislature’s deciding how voting districts will be redrawn to create Congressional districts, as well as state legislative districts.

Our national ideal is that the citizens choose their representatives.

The reality in the gerrymandered system that exists in Pennsylvania is that the political majority of legislators choose who will be their constituents.

Gerrymandering, the manipulation of district boundaries by the majority party in control of the State Legislature to maintain its political power, effectively neutralizes the votes of any citizen not in the majority party.

Currently the state’s districting is under a 2018 State Supreme Court decision which forced the revision of district maps because of gerrymandering.

But those maps will be redrawn again in 2021 by a five-person legislative committee, unless recent PA House and Senate legislation is passed that will create an 11-person independent citizens’ commission. The independent commission will draw the maps to eliminate gerrymandering.

Fair Districts PA, a nonpartisan organization seeking to abolish gerrymandering, has been working for three years to establish an independent commission. Four current bills, House Bills 22 and 23 and Senate bills 1022 and 1023, aim to replace the majoritydominated process and create an independent commission.

In my state House district, PA 13, Rep. John Lawrence has posted a YouTube video on his website expressing his support of the independent commission concept and opposition to gerrymandering. He is not, however, a cosponsor of the bills. It remains to be seen what his vote on the House bills may be.

Six of the 17 municipalities in his district have adopted a resolution supporting reform of the redistricting process: Londonderry, London Grove Township, Oxford Borough, Penn Township, West Grove Borough, and West Nottingham Township.

Efforts at having a fairer redistricting process continue in other municipalities in Rep. Lawrence’s PA13.

West Fallowfield Township supervisors voted 2-0 in 2018 not to adopt a resolution supporting an independent commission, ceding their power as elected township officials to Rep. Lawrence’s domain. They declined to put consideration of a Fair Districts PA resolution on their February 19, 2020 agenda and relegated the issue to the visitors’ comment period, deferring once again to Lawrence’s position as a state legislator.

In order for citizens to ensure the power of their votes, they must act to eliminate gerrymandering. They must make their local township or borough officials, not only their state representatives, aware of their concerns. Only by speaking out can they correct inequities. Kim Chappell

Parkesburg