Advocates of transparent redistricting make WB stop

WILKES-BARRE — Surrounded by the grandeur and historical beauty of the Mary Stegmaier Mansion, David Thornburgh, President and CEO of the Committee of Seventy, discussed the upcoming redistricting process and called for citizens to become active in that process, and to encourage the state’s Legislative Reapportionment Commission to be aggressively transparent.

“The time is now,” said Thornburgh, son of the late former Gov. Richard Thornburgh. “We are here to remind everyone about what community is all about in this Commonwealth. It’s what binds people together. Gerrymandering breaks those ties”

Thornburgh’s effort — Draw the Lines PA — is a statewide civic and education initiative of the Committee of Seventy, that is on a four-week Great Pennsylvania Voteswagon Tour of 2021. The group stopped in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre Tuesday, meeting with dozens of Pennsylvanians to discuss the effort.

“Redrawing legislative lines happens once every 10 years,” Thornburgh said. “How it is done has a tremendous impact on everyday Pennsylvanians and the communities they live in. From determining who represents you in Harrisburg and Washington, D.C., to distributing funding, to ensuring that elected officials actually represent the needs of the communities in which they live — how and who draws our lines matters.”

Thornburgh placed a spotlight on the appointment of the fifth member of the state’s Legislative Reapportionment Commission. The fifth member serves as chair of the five-member commission. The other four members include the majority and minority leaders of both chambers of the Pennsylvania General Assembly.

The LRC meets every decade to draw all 253 state legislative districts.

“Thousands of Pennsylvanian’s called on the LRC to accept applications from everyday Pennsylvanian’s for the fifth spot, and they listened,” Thornburgh said. “We are grateful that the LRC has accepted online applications. Hundreds of Pennsylvanians — Republicans, Democrats, and Independents — have submitted their names. We are now calling on the LRC to turn the cameras on, open the windows and let the sunshine in and have a transparent selection process.”

Tuesday’s Great Pennsylvania Voteswagon Tour included stops at Cooper’s Seafood House in Scranton, Arcaro and Genell Pizza Restaurant in Old Forge, and the Mary Stegmaier Mansion in Wilkes-Barre.

Draw the Lines PA has launched an online petition urging the LRC to make the entire redistricting process open and transparent by life-streaming every future meeting of the LRC. The online petition can be found at — drawthelinespa.org/petition.

Throughout April, the Voteswagon will make dozens of stops across Pennsylvania. It will spotlight the iconic landmarks and distinctive local attractions that define the Keystone State’s communities. These landmarks are authentic places and attractions that local Pennsylvanians know and trust. It’s in that same spirit that Pennsylvanians want their voting districts to be drawn, as the Commonwealth undergoes the redistricting process in 2021.

The redrawing of voting districts must be completed to factor in population shifts logged here and throughout the country in the 2020 U.S. Census, which won’t be finalized until sometime in September, Thornburgh said..

In the past, critics have said the existing practice of allowing legislative leaders to draw boundary lines is unfair because sophisticated voter data can be used to tailor districts favorable to parties or candidates they want to keep in power.

Proposed solutions have included boundaries formulated by independent panels with no consideration of an area’s predominant party registration or previous election outcomes.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2018 overturned the state’s 2011 congressional district map, which had contained odd-shaped district boundaries often highlighted nationally as an example of gerrymandering, according to past published reports.