Coatesville joins major cities supporting redistricting panel

COATESVILLE » This week, Coatesville officials unanimously adopted a resolution supporting the creation of an independent redistricting commission to draw state legislative and congressional district lines. Coatesville thereby joins Erie, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Altoona, York, Reading, Philadelphia and Wilkes-Barre calling for increased fairness in the redistricting process.

“I am very excited this is being done as it is really important to have fair and proper representation for residents,” said Coatesville City Vice President Carmen Green. “I was very excited that Fair Districts PA came to speak to the city council about this issue.”

The redistricting reform being supported by Fair Districts PA places decision-making on map boundaries in the hands of trained citizens tasked with being nonpartisan and transparent. Partisan and personal data will not be used to determine voting patterns so the districts cannot be weighted for the benefit of one party.

Pennsylvanians have been asking for redistricting reform since the early 1990’s when the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania first went to testify at Legislative Reapportionment Commission hearings, urging legislators to respect redistricting criteria set out in the PA constitution.

Twenty years later in 2011 the League once again launched a campaign demanding transparency and fairness in the redistricting process, which went ignored. In 2015 Senator Boscola (D-18) convened a Redistricting Reform Caucus to introduce a PA constitutional amendment creating an independent citizens redistricting commission.

House Bills 22 & 23 and matching Senate Bills 1022 & 1023 currently before the PA House and Senate are substantially different from earlier bills forming an independent commission, building in extensive safeguards and learning from the experience of other states.

Across Pennsylvania, resolutions supporting the creation of an independent redistricting commission is sweeping through counties, and municipalities are eagerly signing on, many resolutions passing unanimously. Change on this issue may be an idea whose time has come.

Carol Kuniholm, cofounder and chair of Fair Districts PA, will speak at Coatesville Area Public Library on Saturday, March 14 from 1:30-3:30 p.m. to explain the basics of partisan gerrymandering and show how important citizen and municipality support has been to the effort to change the status quo on redistricting. The meeting is free and open to the public.