Last week’s split verdict by the US Supreme Court on issues of gerrymandering has created more confusion than ever over the ongoing, and in many cases, decades-long battle to reform redistricting — the way each state handles the decennial redrawing of its legislative and US Congressional district maps after each US census to “fairly” divide its population.
For states where this battle has not been necessary or has not happened, let me provide some perspectives from Pennsylvania — one of the nation’s most heavily gerrymandered states. Pennsylvania also boasts one of the largest and least efficient legislatures in the country. 50 state senators (not too bad) but 203 representatives. There have been efforts to trim those numbers, but they have been repeatedly blocked. Our legislature also writes over 5,500 bills per year. It passes 3-400. Only the US Congress is worse.
And we are also dealing with a reform pathway that is filled with obstacles, many of which are controlled by the very legislators who benefit from the present system and oppose change. Powerful interests have had a strong control of the PA legislature for much of our history, a factor linked in no small part to the coal, steel, banking, and rail lobbies who pretty much called the shots... and the control of outside interests is still the fact today, when you throw in fracking.
The Recent SCOTUS Rulings:
So let’s look at the recent SCOTUS rulings. On the one hand, the Court, surprisingly, refused to allow adding a census question on citizenship and sent the case back to the lower courts. It did leave open the possibility that a different approach by the Trump administration might be seen with more favor, but the timetable was running out given the decision to remand.
Yesterday’s DOJ decision to give up the administration;s effort is, in my mind, a recognition that not only would the case not fare well in review, but that it had even more problems given the recent discovery of documentation that the GOP clearly saw it as a weapon to attack minority registration and the Democratic Party. (I would not be surprised if someone in DOJ spoke to someone in SCOTUS who told them….”This is so bad even WE can’t let it go through.” On the other hand, let me also add my totally cynical view that Donnie and the GOP never give up and they will seek some way to bring it back if at all possible. Only time may be on our side.)
The second SCOTUS opinion simply reeks! To put it bluntly, they ruled that no matter how egregious the cases they see of states using gerrymandering and manipulation to disenfranchise voters, make it hard for them to participate and make it impossible for their voices to be heard, they simply will not get involved….at all. Their ruling? This is the purview of the legislature and none of our business.
And this comes despite the appalling evidence the Court has already heard in earlier cases of legislative chicanery:
• Legislators conspiring to draw districts with “laser precision” to weaken the power of minority voters (North Carolina)
• Politicians horse trading for district lines that help them stay in power by breaking up minority population centers (Texas) And now we learn that the TX Legislature has just quietly put language in a bill that bars the public from any access to any communications legislators may have about the next redistricting.
Events in PA and the Drive for Reform:
I have been working with the citizen volunteers of Fair Districts PA fairdistrictspa.com in the effort to create an independently chosen citizens commission — one working with total transparency -- to handle our redistricting and end our reputation as one of the most heavily gerrymandered states in the US. As such, I offer my personal perspective on what that SCOTUS decision means here and just how challenging it is to effect the change we want.
First, the PA Supreme Court did indeed rule in 2018 that our state's maps were flawed, based on our constitution, but it did so ONLY for our Congressional maps. And let me hammer the point that the decision was made by the highest STATE court and not the feds. Opponents of the court’s action tried to get SCOTUS to kill it, but SCOTUS rightly replied that the violations cited by the PA Supreme court were ones of the STATE constitution and not the federal.
Lots of PA citizens think that 2018 ruling solved the overall problem of redistricting in PA, (and not a few media reports make the same mistake) but in fact, the new maps created by the Court (after the Legislature failed to submit maps that met the court's requirements) dealt ONLY with our Congressional districts.
In the 2018 Congressional election that resulted in the national wave success by Democrats in the House, those new maps produced a new 18-member state delegation split 9-9 (and a delegation that produced 4 women Representatives, an historic high for our state.) With the old maps, used in 2016, the results were 13-5 GOP, even though the GOP had won only slight more overall votes statewide. So it is clear to see the degree to which our state has been gerrymandered. (In fact, in 2018, Democrats earned about 54% of the state vote but still got a 50-50 split of seats).
However, (and here is where the public gets confused) the new maps used in 2018 will only be in place through the 2020 elections and only for Congress. Unless we get an independent commission, after the new census in 2020-21, we will be back to having the Legislative leadership drawing maps and the same old problems, and worse yet, we will be stuck with that for at least another DECADE.
The Unique Roadblocks to Reform in PA
Fair Districts began its work in 2016 and has submitted bills to create an independent citizens commission. Making that change to draw new Congressional maps requires only the passage of a legislative bill, since Congressional redistricting in PA is governed by state election law.
But for the state LEGISLATIVE districts, we have to amend the PA Constitution because it is language in our Constitution that spells out how those districts are to be drawn. And right now, it gives that task to the majority and minority leaders of the legislature who then choose a chair. That group alone is tasked with redistricting and worse yet, they usually operate behind closed doors with no public view of who they are working with, or what powerful interests are “offering or suggesting” to them as regards the drawing of maps. The result is that legislators are picking their voters instead of the other way round.
In order to get an independent commission established to handle legislative redistricting, we have to amend the PA Constitution….
and that is a monumental task....because:
- We have to pass a bill in two successive two-year legislative sessions. (2019-20 and again 2021-22)
- The language each time has to be exactly the same
- And after we do that, the measure has to pass a statewide voter referendum. (Ironically, perhaps the easiest part of the challenge, given public support for reform.)
- We have no initiative process for getting such measures on the ballot either.
So if we cannot get a commission in place by 2021, we're stuck with the old process for another decade. (We might win our cause in the interim, but would not use the new system until 2031).
Bottom line — the whole legislative process is in the hands of the very same legislative leadership who created the mess in the first place
- They operate behind closed doors with no transparency
- They are happy to get input from influential lobbyists
- PA has virtually no limits on gifts to legislators
- And Gerrymandering helps keep them in office and in control of the Legislature.
In the 2017-18 session, we had 110 House co-sponsor a bill to create an independent citizens redistricting commission. That was a majority of our bloated 203 member House.
But with powerful leaders holding an iron grip over the legislative process, leadership sent our bills to committees controlled by allies who stripped language and replaced it with theirs, and ultimately never allowed any bill on the issue to go to the full Legislature for a vote. It died in the final days of the session.
Gerrymandering is Wrong...No Matter Which Side Does it
One other important point:
Fair Districts is non-partisan. We endorse no candidates nor do we give them funding. We do work to make sure their voters know where candidates stand on the redistricting issue.
We view gerrymandering of any form as a threat to our democracy, whether it is done by Republicans or Democrats. In fact, SCOTUS was about to hear a pair of cases about gerrymandering in Maryland (Democratic) and North Carolina (Republican) Interestingly it was progressive Democrats in New Jersey who recently blocked an effort by their legislative majority to ram through their own gerrymanders.
I would also note that while the GOP in Pennsylvania has been in control for some time now, gerrymandering has been practiced with fervor by both parties. Today however, armed with highly sophisticated computer mapping programs and powerful databases of detailed information about individual voters, the ability to draw maps with “surgical precision” has put gerrymandering on steroids.
I will also note that not a few Democratic legislators, after years in the minority in which they get trampled by the gerrymandered majority, are telling us they don’t want reform. They think 2020 may give THEM control of the legislature and THEY can use the same system to benefit themselves.
But with the arrival of computerized mapping, it suddenly evolved into what became a national symbol of truly egregious collusion known here in PA as “Goofy Kicking Donald.” The chicanery was so awful that at one point two parts of the district were joined by the parking lot of a seafood restaurant and part of a hospital. It was actions like that that finally got the PA Supreme Court to agree that this system was deeply flawed, unfair and dangerous to the democratic process.
Building Citizen Support for Change
But given the huge mountain we are forced to climb, we are making real progress. We have built a powerful statewide volunteer organization that has made a big and very clear dent in public opinion:
• We’ve made 700+ presentations so far to over 27,000 PA citizens
• Volunteers have made tens of thousands of contacts with legislators including personal meetings, letters and postcards, emails, faxes and phone calls. One legislator told us she was stunned to poll her constituents and ask their top priorities — and then learn that redistricting was at the top.
• We have collected over 65,000 petition signatures statewide and we are redoubling our efforts to collect more, both at events, and via our website, www.fairdistrictspa.com
• Over 300 municipal bodies and 20 county commissions across the political spectrum have passed resolutions calling on their legislators to back reform. These elected bodies represent over 8.8 million Pennsylvanians—68% of the estimated population of the state. (Over 140 more resolutions are in process.)
• The Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs (PSAB) passed a resolution of support. PSAB represents 956 PA boroughs with a combined population of 2.6 million Pennsylvanians.
• Statewide, nearly 50 media outlets, representing a broad bi-partisan spread of political opinion, have printed hundreds of letters to the editor, run 375 news articles, and 230 editorials, op-eds and columns, nearly all backing reform.
• Statewide and regional polls have found PA citizens support redistricting reform by margins of 65 to over 70%, indicating that support for our reform effort is truly bi-partisan.
About a dozen states nationwide now have some form of a citizens commission process and the number is rising with victories in CO, MI, MO and UT....most of which I should note, have referendum initiatives. And the ballot measures passed by margins of up to 60-70%. That’s bi-partisan. (Even with those wins, legislators in MI and MO both began trying to gut the voters’ wishes after the votes were in.
I’ve spoken before community groups in both hard right and progressive districts and regardless of political leanings, they undertand this system is broken (nearly half the legislative races in our last state election were uncontested because the district was just too heavily gerrymandered for an opponent to compete.) I’ve stood outside polling places to encourage voters to sign our petition for change and over and over before I get into an explanation, the response is, “Where do I sign?!” The public clearly supports reform.
The SCOTUS decision this past week, abdicating federal court involvement in addressing these problems, is frankly an abomination and an abandonment of their mandate to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, one person/one vote, and just plain fairness.
What that makes clear however, is that the only way we can now get the change we need is to stand up and demand that our politicians listen to us or face a loss of their employment.
If you live in PA, go to our website and get involved...sign our petition, volunteer, contact your legislator (we’ll help identify them and where they stand), get a resolution for reform passed in your home town, write a letter to the editor and talk with your friends and neighbors.
Across the country….get involved in local and statewide efforts to reform our redistricting process.
Your democracy literally depends on it!