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Comment offered on state House, Senate maps

With preliminary maps that will shape the next 10 years of the Pennsylvania General Assembly out, the body that is tasked with crafting those maps is getting feedback from all corners of the state.

The Legislative Reapportionment Commission approved a preliminary plan last week and held a series of public hearings to gather additional feedback.

Those who signed up to address the Commission by and large spoke directly about their own House or Senate districts.

Chairman of the Commission, Mark Nordenberg, said this is part of a 30-day period outlined in the state Constitution that provides the public an opportunity to file “exceptions” to the preliminary maps.

“Phrased in a somewhat different way, this period provides us with the opportunity to hear from the public and make improvements to the plan,” he explained in remarks made available on the Commission website. “Some ideas will come to us through these hearings, and others are being shared through our website portal, where we already have received some 1,800 comments, 1,000 of which have been submitted since we approved and released our preliminary plan.”

His remarks assert two “unmistakable trends” that have affected population changes in the state — a shift in population from rural to urban and an increase in the state’s non-white population.

“Responding to these population shifts, we have proposed that new House districts be placed in Lancaster, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties,” he explained, “all places where there has been significant population growth.”

Nordenberg struck back against attempts “persistently asserted by members of the House Republican team that if a district now occupied by a member of their caucus needed to be moved, because of population trends, to another part of the state, they should have the right to determine where that seat would go and to draw the new district.

“It is hard to imagine a position more contrary to the foundation for reapportionment – that legislative districts do not belong to either politicians or their parties but, instead, belong to the people.”

He acknowledged that with topography and municipal and county boundaries that “there necessarily will be districts that are far from symmetrical.”

But he asserted that the preliminary House map, despite Republican opposition, does not constitute a gerrymander “which typically is considered to exist when the party in power draws maps that are designed to prevent the other party from ever getting into power.

“In the case of this preliminary ma… control of the House will vary, depending on the vote-share that each party receives in any given election.”

Nordenberg also outlined how the preliminary maps were drawn, citing “very different approaches were taken in the Senate and the House.

“I might describe the Senate approach as the pursuit of a consensus map. The two leaders and their teams were meeting on a regular basis — in Harrisburg, Greensburg and Pittsburgh, I believe — and were committed to trying to work out as many things as they possibly could,” he explained. “In the House, as I already have reported, there was very limited caucus-to-caucus interaction. Instead, we were dealing with the two caucuses separately and trying, without much success, to bridge the gaps between them.”

Hearings for public feedback were held on Thursday and Friday. Additional sessions are scheduled for Jan. 14 and 15 both in person and on Zoom. The hearings are also livestreamed.

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