Fair Districts PA urges reform
Legislature considering bills to change way districts are drawn
LANSDALE >> How have legislative and congressional districts in Pennsylvania taken the strange shapes they currently have, and what can residents do about it?
Those are questions the nonpartisan Fair Districts PA coalition is trying to tackle, and organizer Mark Schafer shared his thoughts Tuesday on how, and why, to do so.
“There’s an inherent conflict of interest. The people that draw the maps have a vested interest in creating districts that will help them stay in office. That’s the ultimate problem,” said Schafer.
In a public information session at Penndale Middle School, Schafer and Fair Districts PA volunteers outlined the process of gerrymandering, by which voters in
certain municipalities are sliced off into larger districts dominated by the opposite party.
“We are the only democracy in the world that allows legislators to set the boundaries. Talk about foxes and chickens,” said Schafer.
Pennsylvania’s legislative and congressional districts are redrawn every 10 years, Schafer said, and the most recent redistricting effort resulted in several irregularly shaped districts in the area.
The 13th Congressional District, represented by Democrat Brendan Boyle, and the 7th, represented by Republican Pat Meehan, are both intertwined in shapes designed to split certain communities from each other, a processes Schafer called cracking and packing.
“By packing one set of voters into regions that they would win easily, a lot of those voters are lost. If those voters are distributed evenly, we’d have a lot more competitive districts,” Schafer said.
Montgomery County’s population was measured in the 2010 census at just over 800,000, Schafer said, well above the 711,000 needed for the average congressional district, and more than four states (Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, and North Dakota) that only have one representative. However, because of the district maps drawn in 2010, Montgomery County is split among five different congressional districts, thus diluting the impact of voters in each.
“No matter what your issue is: gun violence, women’s issues, rights of the disabled, whatever it might be, until you fix this issue of gerrymandering, your voice is not going to be heard on that issue,” Schafer said. “We have to get past this. This is the keystone of the whole process. We have to get past gerrymandering in order to move on, and have our whole voices listened to.”
How to solve that problem? Instead of the current system in which the two parties agree on the district maps each decade, Fair Districts PA is calling for an amendment to Pennsylvania’s constitution to allow an independent commission of 11 citizens, four from each party and three from other parties, to do so.
“That doesn’t mean only independent voters, it means independent of the political system. No politicians allowed,” Schafer. “Basically, we have these two titans fighting over us, mostly to disenfranchise us.”
A reform effort must be passed by the state Legislature in two consecutive sessions, 2017-18 and 20192020, before going to a referendum in 2020, Schafer said. Since Pennsylvania is likely to lose at least one congressional seat after 2020 due to national population changes, the time is now to start to push local municipalities and state lawmakers to back the effort, he said.
Both houses of the Pennsylvania Legislature are currently considering motions to do so, so Fair Districts PA is mobilizing residents to contact their local lawmakers and ask them to support Senate Bill 22 and House Bill 722, which would create the independent commission.
“This approach has been used successfully in other states. We’re not inventing something new,” Schafer said.
The recommendations of the commission would need to be approved by seven of the 11 votes, and at least one vote from each political party, hurdles deliberately designed to make widespread support necessary.
“It can’t be just Republicans and independents, or all the Democrats and independents. You need a mix, and that’s the idea: You have to have it balanced in some way,” Schafer said.
Out of 62 municipalities in Montgomery County, five so far have passed formal motions backing the redistricting reform effort, including borough councils in Ambler and North Wales. The Lansdale information session Tuesday drew several dozen residents, and Schafer and other Fair Districts PA volunteers called on each of them to contact their lawmakers, spread the word via social media, and think of local retirement communities, social clubs or other local groups who would be open to hearing their message.
“We’ll be happy to come speak to small groups to get that word out. Advocacy, contact your legislator — we have tools to help you do that,” Schafer said.
On May 9, Fair Districts PA is planning an organized “Lobby Day” for volunteers to pack legislative offices in Harrisburg and local districts, and those interested in spreading the word locally are asked to contact organizers. Schafer and his wife, Paula, said they first learned of the effort in January and have since travelled across the state to spread the word.
“We have talking points, ‘Here are things to say.’ We’ve also made the recommendation to find a colleague or friend of the opposite party, so you can go in as two and say ‘This is not a Democrat or Republican issue, this is a representational issue,’” Mark Schafer said.
“The operative word here is ‘action,’ because we cannot move the needle unless you act,” Paula Schafer said.
For more information on Fair Districts PA, visit www.FairDistrictsPA.com, email FDPA.Montco@gmail.com, search for “Fair Districts PA” on Facebook or follow @FairDistrictsPA on Twitter.