Activists call for open legislative redistricting

Seek transparency in redrawing process

Activists are launching a campaign to contact Pennsylvania’s 253 lawmakers advocating the passage of a bill that they say would bring more transparency to the process of redrawing legislative and congressional boundaries.

Fair Districts PA, a coalition of groups that support redistricting reform, is calling the effort the “March Toward Transparency.” It’s intended to garner the votes needed to pass Senate Bill 222 and its companion bill in the state House, which would formally outline a process of public input when state legislative and congressional districts are drawn over the next year or two.

The group’s members met for a virtual town hall on Wednesday and discussed the best ways to ask their state legislators to co-sponsor the bills, which have already received bipartisan support. But like other bills in Harrisburg they require power in numbers to make their way through its GOP-controlled chambers.

Leaders of the group told members that although lawmakers could be hesitant to weigh in on the bills because they haven’t yet been reported to the full House or Senate, they should tell their legislators that unlike prior proposals, these bills don’t seize the redistricting power from the Legislature. The intent is to make the process less secretive and less reliant on backdoor meetings exclusive to party leadership, they said.

For years, advocates had fought to take the power over redrawing district lines from the Legislature and give it to an independent commission, but support never materialized and time ran out, leaders say. Now, they want to push through a bill that — at the very least — would shed light on the process.

If passed, the legislation would mandate a series of livestreamed public hearings before and after lawmakers approve their preliminary plans. Then allow citizens to submit their own maps to “be given consideration equal to formal testimony presented at public hearings,” according to a sponsorship memo. It also would require the launch of a website for data, proposed maps and public comment.

“I’ve been advocating for it as a transparency process, and I think that’s a great story,” said House bill sponsor Wendi Thomas, R-Bucks, in remarks to the Fair Districts PA seminar. “I think most legislators want government to be transparent. It’s a very unifying message that everybody can get behind.”

What normally would have been an all-out blitz to get the bill passed can now be long and sustained, advocates say, because of a six-month delay in the delivery of key U.S. census data to state officials. The data is

needed to start the redistricting process and because it won’t be available until September, there is enough time to pass the legislation and implement the changes.

“If both chambers were to pass these bills by the end of June, which is very doable and a very reasonable timeline, then there would be plenty of time over the summer to implement them ... by the time that data does arrive by the end of the September,” Patrick Beaty, legislative director for Fair Districts PA, told the Pittsburgh Post- Gazette before the Wednesday seminar.