It’s back to the congressional districting drawing board, so to speak.
Gov. Tom Wolf on Tuesday rejected the proposed GOP congressional districting map –– and now Senate President Pro Tempore Joseph Scarnati, R-Brockway, and Speaker of the House Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, are calling on the governor to show his map. They said they want to come to an agreement that would bring together majorities in the House and Senate and that he would sign.
The state Supreme Court had given the legislature until Feb. 9 to produce maps and receive an approval from Wolf by Thursday. Wolf said that the GOP map is a partisan gerrymander that is noncompliant with the court’s order or Pennsylvania’s Constitution.
Under the Republican plan, the Fifth District would include all of Tioga County and Bradford County and part of Mifflin and Lycoming counties and remove Huntingdon and Erie counties. U.S. Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., represents the Fifth, which includes McKean, Elk, Cameron and Potter counties.
In a letter sent to Wolf on Tuesday, Scarnati and Turzai counter Wolf’s claim that the map squeezes densely populated areas into small districts.
“Each district should have 705,688 persons. Of course densely populated areas are going to be located in smaller and more compact geographic districts.This goes without saying,” the letter read.
In addition, Scarnati and Turzai disagreed with claims that cities like Reading and Erie are improperly connected to rural areas.
“Where are you going to connect Erie city but to rural areas?” the letter signed by the senators stated. “There are no voters living in Lake Erie and we are not able to go into Ohio, New York or Toronto with this exercise. The Pennsylvania counties surrounding Erie and Reading are rural.”
They said that the map splits 15 counties and 17 municipalities, while Lt. Gov. Mike Stack’s proposal splits 50 municipalities.
Currently, Republicans control 12 congressional districts, while Democrats control five.
“This entire exercise, while cloaked in ‘litigation,’ is and has been nothing more than the ultimate partisan gerrymander — one brought about by the Democrat Chief Executive of the Commonwealth acting in concert with politically-connected litigants in order to divest the General Assembly of its Constitutional authority to enact Congressional districts,” the letter from the senators said.
Wolf sees it differently.
“The analysis by my team shows that, like the 2011 map, the map submitted to my office by Republican leaders is still a gerrymander,” Wolf said. “Their map clearly seeks to benefit one political party, which is the essence of why the court found the current map to be unconstitutional.”
Common Cause and Common Cause Pennsylvania also chimed in on the topic.
“At the end of the day, no matter who draws the maps –– whether it’s the legislature, the governor or the courts –– Pennsylvanians deserve legislative districts that are fair to all voters, that are produced with complete transparency with respect to the data they used to draw boundaries, and that maintain racial equity for communities of color throughout the commonwealth,” said Micah Sims, executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania.
Kathay Feng, national redistricting director for the Common Cause, said that Pennsylvania residents are worthy of being represented fairly.
“We look forward to a redistricting process managed by the court that will create fair and equal representation of every Pennsylvanian, regardless of their party affiliation,” Feng said.
If Wolf and lawmakers can’t agree on a plan, the court will put forth a map on Feb. 19 and will let voters elect candidates based on those districts during the 2018 election cycle.
State Rep. Martin Causer, R-Turtlepoint, did not immediately return a call seeking comment Tuesday.
