Town and Country Newspaper

News Article

What Now?

Written by Larry Roeder, Editor
2012-02-02

It was a little too obvious.

While much of the new “redistricting” map for Pennsylvania didn’t look too bad, the “gerrymandering” of a few districts stuck out like a sore thumb. In one U.S. Representative District, it was a thumb that stretched from the banks of the Delaware River (in Delaware County) and sliced Chester County in half and wound up the eastern sections of Lancaster and Berks Counties.

In another, the northern third of Chester County was consumed and the lines reached for a third of Montgomery County, sliced Berks County in half and ended up in the eastern section of Lebanon County. These two aberrations are just the ones close to home. There were others, but you get the point.

We’re all for diversity in districts and we understand the political party that controls the State House usually cuts the paths to the benefit of that party in hopes of increasing the electability of their candidates. Don’t get indignant unless you can prove that if the shoe was on the other foot, the Democrats wouldn’t have drawn the map with similar bias towards their support strongholds.

But that doesn’t make it right. This is a case of elected officials choosing their voters, when it should be the other way around. The selection process is legal but is it right?

Last week the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania weighed and rejected the redistricting plan submitted throwing our 2012 election into unprecedented turmoil. This is the first time the court has rejected a redistricting plan since the modern system was adopted in 1968.

According to the Associated Press, the state Supreme Court tossed the plan back because it split towns, municipalities and counties into too many congressional districts.

But, we don’t know that for sure yet. Some of the members of the Supreme Court needed to leave town immediately after their ruling and hop a flight to Puerto Rico to attend a conference of the Pennsylvania Bar Association before they issued a written opinion.

Right now, candidates are in the process of circulating their petitions for the upcoming election. The deadline for filing those petitions is less than two weeks away.

Some reports speculate that reworking the redistricting plan could take weeks or months. There are some who say we should hold the 2012 elections using the 2001 map. To the latter suggestion, there are groups already lined up to challenge that the Supreme Court decision is in violation of the Constitution and the arguments could go on and on, and the voters and candidates remain confused.

We need to develop a better way of redistricting. There were many computer models introduced in 2011 and ignored by most government officials. They were great for presenting “what-if” scenarios in the media. This is 2012 and government officials should embrace technology whenever it can help them better their jobs or decisions.

For officials determined to leave the system “as-is” voters should demand a change that would force the maps to be completed and approved by Oct. 31 of the re-districting year. In fact, officials should implement that deadline themselves and show that they are serious about improving the redistricting process.

With the Oct. 31 deadline, a two-month window for challenges, Supreme Court decisions and alternate redistricting plans would be realized.

For now, all we can do is shrug our shoulders and wait for the Puerto Rico bound Supreme Court justices to return and give us a written opinion so the challenges or corrections can begin.

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