Redistricting for political advantage must end

Regarding “Move Afoot to Change How Pa. Draws Its Political Boundaries” ( March 18): As one who believes that the gerrymandering of “safe” legislative districts fuels political extremism and thwarts compromise, I am encouraged by the overflow crowd at the Mt. Lebanon Library last week seeking redistricting reform. I was one of many who had to leave because the number in the room exceeded the fire code limit.

But as a longtime Democrat, I am also deeply dismayed by Democratic state Sen. Jay Costa’s equivocating, saying that the “tables have turned” and that the Democrats are now in a better position to gerrymander in a manner to their liking. Has the Democratic leadership learned nothing of voters’ frustration as evidenced in the last election?

The existing grotesquely shaped districts are an indefensible outrage. They effectively disenfranchise minority-party voters from district legislative elections and are an admission by Republicans that their policies lack broad appeal and that the only way they can get them enacted is to rig the system. Democrats should not lower themselves to that level, but rather should seize this opportunity to champion a permanent, fair fix.

Too much time and effort are devoted to the composition of redistricting committees, rather than the objective. Districts should be drawn based solely on population head count, without regard to political registration, race or other demographic factors; or where current legislators reside.

I sympathize with the desire to ensure racial minorities are represented in the Legislature, but gerrymandering to achieve that goal creates the precedent for others to do so for less noble objectives. RICHARD MATTHEWS

Mt. Lebanon by being active, we’re somehow helping to write a “new chapter in perversity” (because sometimes there are so many of us making so many phone calls that lines get jammed). And somehow, according to him, we’re not “real constituents with real concerns” — though I’m not sure why.

Mr. DiGiorgio, I’ll admit that I have cried over the election, but I and my neighbors are not crybabies. We are very real, very concerned citizens. Maybe you’d like to come meet us. And while you’re at it, can you have our absent Sen. Pat Toomey join you? We’ve got a lot on our minds we’d like to share. NANCY KRYGOWSKI

Greenfield

Regarding a recent commentary by Val DiGiorgio, the chairman of the Pennsylvania Republican Party, about those of us who are protesting the Trump agenda and our local representatives’ support of that agenda (“Crybaby Politics,” March 21 Perspectives):

I would like to introduce Mr. DiGiorgio to my 81-yearold mother who forgoes the comfort of her recliner to stand in the street every week, often in the cold, to protest the co-opting of our democracy by the current administration and its local advocates, Sen. Pat Toomey and Rep. Tim Murphy.

My mother buried a husband when she was 34 years old, raised three children alone and is a 25-year veteran of the New York City School system.

I dare the chairman to call my mother a crybaby to her face. Or the nurse who worries what will happen to her

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most vulnerable patients if the American Health Care Act is enacted; or the cancer survivor who worries that low-income women will not have access to cancer screenings if Planned Parenthood is defunded; or my husband, who is worried about whether he will be able to keep his business open if our health care costs go up tens of thousands of dollars (we insure in the individual market for ourselves and one employee and his family) as they are projected to under the GOP plan.

We are participating in our democracy, not interfering with it. We are not drowning out the voices that need to be heard; we are those voices.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am one of the organizers for Mondays With Murphy. MYKIE REIDY

Mt. Lebanon