Board calls for fair redistricting

SKIPPACK >> You can add Skippack to the ever-growing list of Montgomery County municipalities calling for an independent commission to draw the new legislative district lines after the next Census.

Supervisors voted unanimously at their March 13 meeting to adopt the resolution.

“Legislative and Congressional redistricting has at times resulted in gerrymandered districts that favor one political party over the other,” reads part of the resolution.

The rationale for the resolution can be found in the text itself: “The creation of a truly independent citizens redistricting commission devoid of political motivation or partisanship will: ensure a fair, transparent, and accurate legislative and congressional redistricting process that protects political subdivisions; prohibits districts from being drawn to favor or discriminate against a political party or candidate; require the use of impartial and sound methodology when setting district boundaries; require public input and fully comply with the Constitutional requirement that ‘no county, city, incorporated town, borough, township or ward’ be divided ‘unless absolutely necessary.’”

It took a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision to redraw Congressional districts across Pennsylvania before the 2018 election, after the districts drawn by the Republican majority in Harrisburg were deemed to be skewed to favor the GOP.

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 are calling for permanent reform of how those lines are drawn and Skippack’s supervisors have signed on in support of that effort.

The vote comes nearly after a year after activists from Fair Districts PA approached the board.

“Fair Districts-PA welcomes the support of the Skippack supervisors. Skippack joins over two dozen Montgomery County municipalities who have stated their support for redistricting reform,” Rich Rafferty, the Fair Districts PA – Montgomery County lead, said in a press release from the group.

Rafferty was the speaker at a March 4 presentation on “Making Your Vote Count - Redistricting Reform,” at the Boyertown Community Library. Last month, he made similar presentations at libraries in Schwenksville and Abington.

“It’s important to remember”, Rafferty said, “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, as usual, resulting in another 10-year cycle of gerrymandered Congressional and state legislative maps. We need reform legislation to be adopted in 2019,” he said.

Last year, several local municipalities voted to support such reform, including West Pottsgrove and Upper Providence townships. Skippack’s adoption is the first Montgomery County municipality to join in this legislative session, according to Fair Districts-PA activist Ruth Yeiser.

The reform legislation Fair Districts PA is proposing and which Skippack most recently endorsed, secured bipartisan majority support during the 20172018 Harrisburg legislative session But it was blocked by a few legislative leaders with a poison pill provision that gutted the most important aspects of the reform.

Fair Districts-PA is back advocating for legislation that must pass during the 2019-2020 session.

House Bill 23 creates, by statute, an Independent Citizens Commission to draw congressional maps. House Bill 22 extends the role of the Independent Citizens Commission, by a state constitutional amendment, to put the redistricting power for both the Pennsylvania congressional and state legislative districts into the hands of an independent citizens commission.

The two bills will create one commission. Commissioners would be randomly selected from a list of qualified candidates who would be held accountable to make the redistricting process fair, transparent and provide for meaningful public input, according to the Fair Districts-PA press release.

“The United States is the only major democracy that allows legislators a role in drawing their own district lines, and for years Pennsylvania has been one of the most gerrymandered states in the nation,” Carol Kuniholm, the chair of Fair Districts PA, said in a press release announcing the Skippack vote.

“Our local officials see first hand how gerrymandered districts confuse and frustrate voters, make electoral participation more difficult and undermine real representation,” she said. “This reform is an affirmation of our nation’s founding principle: government of, by and for the people.”

The Skippack supervisors have joined more than 250 Pennsylvania municipalities and 20 counties in passing support resolutions.

In November, Gov. Tom Wolf signed an executive order creating a commission to study redistricting.

In addition to Fair Districts-PA and Gov. Wolf, another advocacy group, Draw the Lines, is pursing the same goal through a different method — inviting citizens to draw their own district lines to show them how easy it is.

That effort most recently came to Pottstown March 5 for an event held at the Sustainability and Innovation Hub of Montgomery County Community College on College drive.

That group is current sponsoring a second public mapping competition, in which people can win up to $5,000 for their map. The deadline for maps to be submitted is May 31.

Draw the lines ran its first round of competitions last fall and awarded over $32,000 in regional and state prizes for mappers all over Pennsylvania.

“People are able to start drawing their own map on our website, at drawthelinespa.org,” according to Justin Villere, Draw the Lines Chief of Staff.