Redistricting process encouraging but needs public input

And so it begins: The process of drawing new congressional districts in Pennsylvania gets underway in earnest this week as competing legislative groups release proposed maps.

On Wednesday, House State Government Committee Chairman Seth Grove, R-York, introduced into legislation a map drawn by Lehigh County piano teacher Amanda Holt, who is a former Republican county commissioner and redistricting activist. Grove said the map was chosen from 19 submitted to his committee by the public.

This is the first redistricting process since the state Supreme Court threw out the maps that were drawn a decade ago. They gained notoriety for extreme gerrymandering, including the extension of a district from Delaware County through Berks.

The map introduced by Grove’s committee is the first in a process of negotiation and approvals needed from the Republican-controlled state Legislature and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf. The state Senate counterpart to Grove’s House committee is preparing to introduce a rival map that they say has bipartisan support.

Committee and floor votes on the House and Senate proposals are expected in January after a public comment period. The final product will then go to the governor, and if there is no agreement, the state Supreme Court may again end up performing the task.

A deadline looms as candidates can begin the process on Feb. 15 to get on the ballot for the May 17 primary. Many eyes are on Pennsylvania since the new maps reflect the loss of a congressional seat, dropping from 18 to 17, to reflect population changes over the past decade reported by the U.S. Census.

Redistricting in the current polarized political climate is seen as a way for parties to gain power, outlining districts that create voting advantage for one party over the other. This year’s redistricting exercise has generated strong efforts to insert public opinion into the process.

That public outreach produced the map drawn by Holt and is a driving force in the Senate committee work as well. But as critics noted this past week, public input is about more than soliciting drawings from private citizens. Most important is the ability for the public to have some say in this crucial moment of determining representation.

Senate State Government Committee Chairman David Argall, R-Schuylkill, told the Associated Press he expects a lot of different ideas, public comment and public hearings in the coming weeks. For his part, Grove said he did not expect lawmakers to adopt his committee’s map wholesale, but said introducing it is rather about putting forward a “citizen’s map.”

In a statement reported by AP, David Thornburgh, chair of Draw the Lines PA, one of the most visible proponents of public input, said the State Government Committee should publish an explanation of the decisions that went into making the map and every district to help people make sense of it.

“We also would like the Legislature to allow more opportunities for the public to comment on the preliminary map,” Thornburgh said. “It is one thing to make a map public, it is another thing to take action based on public input.”

We agree. The release of Holt’s map and expected release of a counterpart in the Senate committee is a positive first step to gaining public input into redistricting.

Grove’s office said Holt’s map limits splits of municipalities and offers compact and contiguous districts, but Democrats have already objected saying they were blindsided by its release on Wednesday. In our region, some existing districts such as the Bucks 1st District remained largely intact. The 6th District which includes much of suburban Chester County and rural Berks County plus the city of Reading is drawn as extended into Lebanon County. To get to 17 districts, the map squeezes four districts that cover a large swath of rural northern and central Pennsylvania down to three.

The approval process toward a final map is sure to be messy, and that’s OK. Compromise and overhaul of past practice demand that legislators and the governor treat the process as seriously as the result. Drawing this map must not be another exercise of drawing a line in the sand. Lawmakers — legislators as well as Wolf — need to cross that line and engage the public. This is our map: Let’s make sure it reflects the people of Pennsylvania.