Lawmakers continue to jostle over redistricting reform

Harrisburg continues to be embroiled in a dispute over redistricting reform after Gov. Ed Rendell recently urged lawmakers to reconsider recently tabled legislation that would fix how Pennsylvania's congressional districts are drawn.

Adding to the long-running drama, Rendell, a Democrat, wrote to the chairs of the House and Senate's State Government committees last week, imploring them to address the chronic problem of gerrymandering -- carving up districts to the advantage of incumbents and majority parties -- before the State Rep. Babette Josephs2010 census. Pennsylvania is the second-most gerrymandered state in the country, according to the League of Women Voters.

"The Commonwealth's existing redistricting process undermines democracy by institutionalizing a powerful system of incumbent protection," Rendell wrote in a letter to state Sens. Anthony H. Williams (D-Philadelphia) and Jeffrey Piccola (R-Dauphin), and Reps. Babette Josephs (D-Philadelphia) and Mathew E. Baker (R-Bradford). "For every vote to truly count, we must have competitive elections where voters have the opportunity to choose between viable candidates. I am convinced that the only way to ensure meaningful elections is to take politics out of the process of drawing legislative boundaries.

"This issue is neither arcane nor academic; how we draw legislative boundaries impacts the daily lives of Pennsylvanians because competitive elections in rationally drawn districts are the only way that voters can make their voices heard on the issues that matter to them," he added.

In a letter responding to Rendell on Friday, Josephs, who has come under particularly withering criticism for tabling the measure, reiterated her concerns with the specifics of the provision, and voiced a commitment to redistricting reform of some kind.

"This bill, as currently drafted, would give full and complete authority to an unelected bureaucrat to make several hundred critical decisions that will create new districts, eliminate existing districts and significantly alter many more. This bureaucrat, admittedly unqualified for the task and reluctant to take on such authority, would be accountable only to the General Assembly itself," she wrote to Rendell.

"While I appreciate your support for changing the current redistricting process, I also know that it must not be done hastily with unintended consequences that set back reform," she added. "There is still time for my committee to consider redistricting legislation; however we must work in tandem if it is to be successfully done."

She also asked Rendell to "exert his influence" across the legislature to bring lawmakers together on the issue.