The fight to end gerrymandering in Pennsylvania is in trouble. This legislative session’s anti-gerrymandering bill has been stalled in committee after being introduced more than 100 days ago, then considered at one initial hearing.
This bill responds to the 70% of Pennsylvanians who want gerrymandering to end. Months of citizen advocacy won co-sponsorship by 25 of the 50 senators in Harrisburg. Yet, Senate State Government Committee Chair Sen. David Argall, R-Schuylkill County, has said his committee is too busy to consider the bill.
Last week, Argall revealed plans to amend the bill in committee and report it out to the full Senate by this week. The proposed amendments gut the original bill and greatly limit its scope (congressional districts only). It’s not clear whether what remains in the bill would curb gerrymandering, and the amended bill drops the original bill’s explicit prohibition of “political discrimination” (maps drawn to favor one party).
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out the General Assembly’s 2011 gerrymandered congressional maps as unconstitutional. Those maps were rigged to determine the outcomes of elections before a single vote was cast. Is Pennsylvania headed down the same twisted, rocky road 10 years later?
Let’s not go there. Let’s ask our local senators Pat Stefano and Kim Ward to support Senate Bill 222 as it is. Passing it will open a path to a better, fairer process for drawing the next decade’s voting district maps and most importantly restoring the power of the vote to us, the voters.
Karen Calhoun
Jenners
The writer is a volunteer group coordinator with Fair Districts PA, a statewide coalition advocating for reform of redistricting rules.