Anti-gerrymandering events coming to region
It took a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision to redraw Congressional districts across Pennsylvania.
The result in last year’s elections was that the 18 seats from Pennsylvania split right down the middle, nine Republicans and nine Democrats. That’s opposed to the 2016 Congressional elections, which tilted red with 13 Republicans and five Democrats winning office under districts drawn by GOP state lawmakers.
But activists are warning that the court’s redrawing of the maps treated a symptom and not the systemic problem, which is that after the next Census in 2020, the same General Assembly that gave Pennsylvania the nationally mocked 7th Congressional district — think “Goofy kicking Donald Duck” — will be in charge of drawing the district lines all over again.
Those activists, Fair Districts PA and Draw The Lines PA are offering two local opportunities, one in Boyertown, one in Pottstown, for those so inclined to get involved.
• On Monday, March 4, a presentation on “Making Your Vote Count - Redistricting Reform,” will be made at the Boyertown Community Library, 24 N. Reading Ave., at 7 p.m. by a Fair Districts PA - Montgomery County leader.
Rich Rafferty, the Fair Districts PA — Montgomery County lead, will explain why his organization believes gerrymandering reform is critically needed in Pennsylvania.
• On Tuesday, March 5, Draw the Lines PA will hold a “Games for Democracy” event at the Montgomery County Community College Sustainability and Innovation Hub, 140 College Drive in Pottstown.
The free event will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. and dinner will be provided by the Pottstown Area Health and Wellness Foundation.
Children over age 6 are welcome, there will be six activity stations and those attending can get started on drawing their own district map.
According to the Pottstown Draw the Lines event organizer and former Owen J. Roberts Schools Superintendent Myra Forrest, “Draw the Lines is a committee intent on teaching the public (students, parents, adults, everyone) about the evils of gerrymandering. There is a contest that takes place using an online map so that people can redraw congressional districts in PA. The first contest awards were given on February 6 at the state capital.”
It was won by Drexel Hill resident and political consultant Phillip Hensley.
Draw the Lines is a statewide civic education and engagement initiative under the Philadelphia-based good government group, the Committee of Seventy.
At the Boyertown event, Rafferty will “explain why the participation of a motivated citizenry across Pennsylvania is urgently needed in 2019 to change how our Congressional and state legislative maps are drawn,” according to a release about the event.
“It’s important to remember,” Rafferty said in the release, “that the 2018 Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision that forced a redrawing of our 18 Congressional district maps will expire in 2021 and the same Harrisburg legislative leaders will then proceed under the old backroom rules, resulting in another 10-year cycle of gerrymandered Congressional and state legislative maps. We need reform legislation to be adopted in 2019.”
“In a profound distortion of the Democratic process, recent advances in mapping technology and voter data collection have made it possible for those who draw district lines in Pennsylvania to capture voting districts and control election results well before a single vote has been cast,” according to Fair Districts PA, which is supporting reform that puts the drawing of the district lines in the hands of a non-partisan citizens committee.
Its reform legislation, which secured bipartisan majority support during the 2017-2018 Harrisburg legislative session, was blocked by those few legislative leaders. Fair Districts-PA is back advocating for legislation that must pass during the 2019-2020 session.
Since 2016, nearly 300 municipalities across the Commonwealth, including 23 in Montgomery County, 21 in Chester county and five in Berks County, have adopted a boilerplate resolution shared by Fair Districts calling for reform.
Locally, those municipalities include both the Montgomery and Chester County commissioners as well as Pottstown, New Hanover, West Pottsgrove, Collegville, Lower Frederick, Phoneixville, East Pikeland and New Morgan.
In November, Gov. Tom Wolf signed an executive order creating a commission to study redistricting.
Berks County, with a population of 417,000, should have seven state representatives with election districts completely inside the county. Instead, the gerrymandered, 2011 district maps gave the county nine state representative districts, of which five are split across adjoining counties, according to Fair Districts.
Similarly, Fair Districts PA argues, Montgomery County, with a population of 826,075 residents, should have 13 state representatives with election districts completely inside the county.
Instead, the gerrymandered, 2011 district maps gave Montgomery County 18 state representative districts, of which six state representatives partially represent Montgomery County and an adjoining county such as Berks, Delaware or Chester.
As an example, part of Pottstown is represented to state Rep. Tim Hennessey, R26th Dist., and with the exception of that part of Pottstown, the rest of his district is located in Chester County. The remainder of Pottstown is represented by the 146th District, won last year by Joe Ciresi, D-146th Dist.
Carol Kuniholm, the cofounder and chair of Fair Districts PA, said in the release, “by any measure, Pennsylvania is among the most severely gerrymandered states in the nation. This means diminished choice for all voters. Our distorted districts yield a less accountable government that is unable to enact policy solutions or accomplish even the minimum requirement of the job — to agree on a reasonable budget.”