State House Republicans on the House State Government Committee are pushing to bill to give more power to the majority party when it comes to redistricting.
According to the Associated Press the committee voted along party lines on a bill that would put redistricting in the hands of a six person panel. One member would come each from the state Senate and House Democratic caucuses, and the other two would be voted on by the whole of each chamber.
In order for the panel to approve of a map five of the six members would need to vote in favor of the map. If the panel cannot get that vote, the maps would be voted on before the entirety of both chambers.
Governor Tom Wolf responded to the move by the House Republicans calling it “partisan politics at its worst.”
“This is partisan politics at its worst and it shows a flippant disregard for thousands of citizens that have spoken in favor of independent redistricting and ending gerrymandering. After the last few months, it should be clear that the solution to our broken redistricting system is not putting more power in the hands of partisan politicians. This is wrong, and it is an affront to our democracy,” Wolf said.
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16 Responses
I love how the Democrats are going out of their way to subvert democracy these days. First, you get a court to illegally redraw our congressional districts then you block the state legislature from reasserting its democratic right to draw legislative districts because unaccountable bureaucrats who nobody voted for will draw districts that are more favorable to the political interests of the oxymoronically-named Democratic Party.
The last thing I want is California-style redistricting given that the state contains many rotten borough congressional districts that regularly have vote totals that are less than half those of other districts in the same state. For example, Dana Rohrabacher’s district had several times as many votes cast in 2016 as Jim Costa’s district. Democrats aren’t even try to hide their desire to impose the same naked corruption upon Pennsylvania anymore, which is why it is so important that we vote the Democrats out this year. Republicans may be useless most of the time but Democrats are crazy, extreme and determined to lock themselves into power forever (just look at how they’ve refused to accept the legitimacy of every single Republican president elected this century and look at what they’ve done to the states they run).
RethugliKKKans continue to grasp for power and to cheat to win.
. These buffoons are as tone-deaf as they are stupid. They should all follow Paul Ryan’s example.
This constitutional amendment proposal will never pass the ultimate vote—the voters of the Commonwealth by referendum.
To say California does everything wrong is hyperbolic. There’s little doubt that their methods of drawing districts, and (arguably)the establishment of state legislative term-limits, are models that Pennsylvania can benefit from. Yeah, they screw some other things up, but how manage other aspects of government is pretty stellar.
It’s a revenge fantasy, removing the Court’s current role in the process. Who sponsors this childishness?
Clearly, NONE of these guys wants to keep their jobs. Overwhelming majorities of PA voters – Rep and Dem – want a neutral commission to draw the maps. These buffoons are as tone-deaf as they are stupid. They should all follow Paul Ryan’s example.
The GOP Leadership just does not learn. They do not hold all the cards. Time to play nice and for the future.
“State House Republicans on the House State Government Committee are pushing to bill to give more power to the majority party when it comes to redistricting.”
All the more reason to keep the Republicans from being the majority party.
Having the state supreme court throw out the old maps in an election year, draw their own, and then approve their own is partisan politics at it’s worst
Yeah. How dare they throw out unfair partisan gerrymandered maps and replace them with fair ones?
Gerrymandering the map in the other direction is no more fair than that which it replaced. Regardless of how nice it looks overlayed on a map. If the point is proportional representation then we should just use that system, instead of pretending that who draws the lines does not explicitly benefit from drawing them
Joe, the new maps will give Dems 4 more seats, for half the delegation. Stop acting like half is somehow cheating, when Ds outnumber Rs by 800,000.
There was an excellent program on PCN recently that featured several redistricting committee members from California who spoke with honesty about their redistricting work. Apparently, the Republican leadership did not watch the program or they would have learned what “good government” is in terms of redistricting. Gov Wolf is right. This is a bad idea.
To use California as an example shows how bad it really is !
To say California does everything wrong is hyperbolic. There’s little doubt that their methods of drawing districts, and (arguably)the establishment of state legislative term-limits, are models that Pennsylvania can benefit from. Yeah, they screw some other things up, but how manage other aspects of government is pretty stellar.