Slaying the gerrymandering monster - & getting it right
Tick, tick, tick … That sound you hear was the clock ticking down toward the deadline for the Pennsylvania Legislature to redraw the state Congressional maps.
It was the last few dying embers of the smoldering carcass of the redistricting process our elected representatives pulled off back in 2011.
On Friday Republican leaders in the state Legislature beat the clock, delivering new Congressional maps to Gov. Tom Wolf, who now must review them and decide whether he will sign off and submit them to the court. Wolf indicated no ruling would come until early in the week. He has until Thursday to make up his mind.
A first quick glance at the new GOP drawings shows a much more compact, contiguous 7th District, the poster boy for redistricting reform. Gone is the grotesque, two distinct chunks of ground roundly lampooned as “Goofy kicking Donald Duck.” Also gone is that wide swath that veered out into Lancaster County. The district appears much more contiguous now, covering the bulk of Chester County, along with contiguous slivers of Chester and Montgomery counties.
This furious redrawing was sparked by a ruling that turned the Pennsylvania political world upside down, when the state Supreme Court tossed out the maps, ruling them unconstitutional because they were blatantly gerrymandered to favor Republicans. Not only that, but the court slapped a stringent deadline on the Legislature to redraw the maps, ordering a new version by Friday.
How serious was the court? Justices hinted that if the Legislature failed to rectify what they called a blatant exercise in politics, they would do it themselves.
Republicans who control both the state Senate and House, thus holding all the cards in the redistricting poker game, were not thrilled. They appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, alleging this “activist” court was itself dabbling in politics, blatantly taking on a role that is reserved for the Legislature.
The nation’s high court rejected their complaint, and concurred with the state court. The maps had to go.
Top state Republicans Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, and House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, believe the new map “complies fully” with the court’s order. Naturally, several Democrats disagree, and are already calling on Wolf to reject the plan.
This week the state Supreme Court expounded on why they ruled the way they did. In a 139-page majority opinion, Justice Debra Todd detailed the problems with the last redistricting exercise, something the Legislature is mandated to do based on the results of the latest census.
The next one is due in 2020.
You’ve heard of the fox guarding the hen house. Welcome to the world of redistricting, Pennsylvania-style.
Republicans control the Legislature, thus they bent and contorted the boundaries of congressional districts to favor their candidates, in particular GOP incumbents. The result is the comical, nearly grotesque shape of the 7th Congressional District here in Delaware County. There was a time when this district for the most part covered Delaware County. Through the wonders of redistricting, it now twists and turns its way through parts of no less than five suburban counties – Delaware, Chester, Montgomery, Lancaster and Berks. So ludicrous is the two large - but hardly contiguous - chunks of turf in the district it earned the moniker “Goofy kicking Donald Duck.”
It is precisely that blurring of boundaries that earned Justice Todd’s wrath. The judge wrote that the redistricting process clearly violated the clause the mandate of neutral standards such as compact and contiguous districts not be distorted for unfair partisan political gain.
Anyone who glances at the current 7th District knows that did not happen.
The court wrote that the 2011 redistricting process plainly violates the guarantee laid out by the state constitution, that elections be “free and equal.”
“An election corrupted by extensive, sophisticated gerrymandering and partisan dilution of votes is not ‘free and equal,’” Todd wrote.
We applaud the court’s ruling, while reminding that this should not necessarily be seen as simply a Republican maneuver. The sad truth is that, given a political majority in the Legislature that tilted in their favor, Democrats would likely engage in the same kind political shenanigans.
It’s corrosive to the underlying democratic process, the idea that every vote counts. When gerrymandering flourishes, it dilutes the power of that vote, undermines citizens’ belief in the system, and fuels the rampant apathy seen in so many voters who no longer bother to exercise their precious franchise, the vote.
In short, what gerrymandering does is turn the process upside-down: Representatives selecting their voters, instead of the other way around.
While we hail the courts’ rulings, we wonder about the stringent timetable they have put in place.
Citizen groups such as the League of Women Voters have waited seven years to expose this blatant political exercise to the disinfectant meted out in the court.
Now the courts have imposed a rush to justice, seeking to reverse in weeks what has festered for years.
The GOP did their part in redrawing the state’s 18 congressional maps. Now the ball is in Gov. Wolf’s court.
All of this is being done so that the new, hopefully more representative map, can be in place for the May primary.
Here in the 7th, a small army of both Republicans and Democrats will be seeking their party’s nomination to replace Republican Rep. Pat Meehan, who has decided not to seek reelection after it was revealed he used taxpayer dollars to settle a sexual harassment complaint filed by a former staffer.
At this point, none of these candidates knows what the district will actually look like, and more importantly if they reside within the new borders, thus making them eligible to run.
We fully support the rulings of the courts. The redistricting process was a blatant exercise in gerrymandering.
We hope that the timetable imposed by the court does not merely replace it with a rush to judgment.
Gov. Wolf, the clock is ticking.