Some things to ponder before you cast your ballot
It wasn’t widely reported, but Democrats here in Delaware County and in some other parts of the state got some great news on Monday ahead of next week’s election.
The U.S. Supreme Court, for the third and final time, has declined to hear an appeal of the state Supreme Court’s redistricting of Pennsylvania’s 18 congressional districts. The high court’s first two denials were of emergency appeals ahead of last Spring’s primary election, but this one was one of the court’s garden-variety, “No, we’re definitely not going to hear that, so don’t bother us again” decisions.
It’s over. Amen.
As is standard practice, the court did not comment on why it was denying the appeal, but I suspect it was because the U.S. Constitution leaves election matters up to the states.
And, in this case, the state court decision was based solely on provisions of the Pennsylvania Constitution, leaving no federal question to be decided.
The new alignments mean Democrats have a good chance to pick up three or four new seats along with about five that already had a majority of Democratic voters.
That will leave nine or
10 congressional seats in Republican hands, a much closer approximation of the state’s voter population.
And the district boundaries will stand not only for this election but also for
2020 (unless the state Legislature can find some sneaky way around it).
Unfortunately, the Republican-controlled Legislature has completely thwarted Fair Districts Pa. in its monumental efforts to get an amendment to the state constitution on the ballot to have both congressional and state legislative districts apportioned by a non-partisan commission.
There may still be some way to get that passed ahead of the 2020 census, but even without that happening, the state court’s redistricting mandate is already working electoral magic.
The new 5th District is now D+15, which means a heck of a lot of voters would have to abandon the Democratic majority to elect a Republican candidate to Congress.
By the way, Independents, yes you can vote in this election. It’s called the “general election” because every registered voter regardless of party or association is allowed to vote.
I can’t believe vote canvassers are actually hearing that question from some independent voters.
Jeez, didn’t you get any civics education in school?
Maybe you didn’t manage to get a candidate on the ballot, but you can still vote for Republicans or Democrats or write in Mickey Mouse, whatever.
Another stupid question I have heard over the years is, “Don’t I have to vote the same way in the November election as I voted in the primary?” Again … Jeez!
Statewide, Republicans are likely to retain control of the state Legislature, but if more Delaware Countians vote Democratic than Republican in this and the 2020 elections, those statistics will show up in the census data.
That will make it harder for the state Legislature to severely gerrymander either state or federal districts in 2021.
Both Republican State Rep. Chris Quinn, R-168 of Middletown, and Republican state Sen. Tom McGarrigle, R-26 of Springfield, in their respective debates, allowed as how they were all for “fair districts.”
They both said, sure the old 7th Congressional District was “funny-looking,” but only slightly Republican leaning (R+2), so it was “fair.”
They glided over the fact that our “Goofy kicking Donald” 7th District was the national poster child for gerrymandered districts.
The reason it was so funny-looking was it was spread out over five counties, connected by a football field-size strip here and a restaurant parking lot there, in the Republicans’ desperate effort to keep it majority Republican in the face of changing voter registration demographics.
The Legislature completely discounted important factors like contiguity, compactness and community of interest, instead grabbing this sliver of GOP voters here, that pocket there. The state Supreme Court did a good job of remedying that.
Locally, I think we are seeing the great genius of a strong two-party system at work, bringing the two sides back to the middle and defeating extremism on either side.
Look at the 5th Congressional District race – all of Delaware County, a bit of Southwest and South Philadelphia and a sliver of Montgomery County.
Two remarkably competent, moderate, accomplished women – Democrat Mary Gay Scanlon and Republican Pearl Kim – are duking it out in very civil fashion.
They are strikingly similar in their positions on most issues and whichever one wins, we will have at least one woman in the Pennsylvania House delegation.
By the way, Kim and Scanlon are also running against each other in the old 7th District, which continues to exist until January. The winner of that race will go to Congress for two months, during most of which the House will be in recess.
Remember it’s that’s important.
Fortunately, both those races are on the same ballot in those geographic areas where the old 7th was, so you could still vote straight Democrat or Republican and vote in both.
This year pollsters are predicting that voter turnout is going to be historically high for a midterm election – all the way up to 51 percent of eligible voters.
Be still my fibrillating heart!
We vote on Tuesdays because 200 years ago, that was the day of the week farmers got their crops to the 5th market.
Why are we still voting on Tuesdays and why is election day still a regular work day rather than a national holiday?
And why isn’t every citizen registered to vote when they turn 18? Why can’t we have open primaries and early voting?
Why are states like Kansas, Georgia and Texas allowed to suppress minority voters so blatantly?
Republican control of Congress, governorships, state legislatures and Secretary of State offices have a lot to do with the answers to those questions.
Think about that when you go into the voting booth.