{"id":49272,"date":"2022-06-09T11:16:31","date_gmt":"2022-06-09T18:16:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=49272"},"modified":"2022-06-09T11:16:31","modified_gmt":"2022-06-09T18:16:31","slug":"2022-yields-best-statehouse-redistricting-maps-in-pennsylvanias-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=49272","title":{"rendered":"2022 Yields Best Statehouse Redistricting Maps in Pennsylvania\u2019s History"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By<\/span>Khalil Abdullah<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A coalition of community advocacy organizations has achieved remarkable success in securing fairer voting representation for Pennsylvania\u2019s ethnic communities. \u201cWe have the best statehouse maps in Pennsylvania history,\u201d exclaimed\u00a0One Pennsylvania<\/a>\u00a0Political Director Salewa Ogunmefun.<\/p>\n

Ogunmefun, speaking at a\u00a0redistricting symposium<\/a>\u00a0for media hosted by Ethnic Media Services, said her organization\u2019s efforts were largely concentrated on seven of the state\u2019s 67 counties, including its largest ones, such as Philadelphia, Delaware, Montgomery, and Alleghany.<\/p>\n

Those seven counties and Pennsylvania itself speak to America\u2019s growing ethnic and linguistic diversity. Ogunmefun said, \u201c23.5 percent of the state was people of color \u2013 LatinX folks, Black folks, Asian Americans. But when we looked at the state legislature, 90 percent of that state legislature was White; 75 percent were men.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ogunmefun<\/a>\u00a0attributed the starkness of the disparities between wealthier communities and poorer ones to past policies and practices that failed to address bread and butter issues, for example the state\u2019s $7.25 an hour minimum wage or its dearth of adequate funding for schools in poorer communities.<\/p>\n

Arguing that community self-determination is expressed through voters being able to elect candidates of their choice, she noted that \u201cwe were able to add an additional six districts in the state house that allow for people of color, by definition of a coalition district, to actually elect people who are going to be more accountable to their actual communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

One Pennsylvania\u2019s success in securing new maps and fairer electoral representation, though in large part due to the tireless community education groundwork of its coalition partners, is also directly attributable to the state\u2019s Legislative Reapportionment Committee (LRC).<\/p>\n

The LRC is comprised of two Republican and two Democratic legislators, but its chair, Mark Nordenberg, a highly esteemed and long-serving educator, was appointed by the state\u2019s Supreme Court, at the request of LRC members, with a mandate to strive for fairness in the committee\u2019s deliberations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the first few hearings, the experts were all White, focusing on things that were important \u2013 like rural communities \u2013 but no experts addressing needs of BIPOC communities,\u201d Ogunmefun said.<\/p>\n

Noteworthy, she explained, was that the LRC agreed to invite other experts representing the interests of BIPOC communities to present testimony, expanded the hours during which the hearings were held so that more community residents could testify, solicited feedback on the initial draft maps and adopted some of those recommendations in the final version.<\/p>\n

The payoff in fairer maps was validation that years of community organizing and voter education can yield tangible results. Maria del Carmen Gutierrez is Senior Director of Membership with\u00a0CASA<\/a>, which focuses on the empowerment of LatinX communities. She said her organization is committed to the long-haul of securing fair electoral and community representation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not leaving behind any members of our community, no matter what color they are and no matter what language they speak. We delivered, personally, those unity maps, to the LRC.\u201d<\/p>\n

Redistricting a through-line to voter education<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Gutierrez conceded there was a time when her focus on the electoral component of the political process centered solely on voting. \u201cI have to be very honest; I didn\u2019t know what redistricting was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spanish-only speakers, or for that matter, any foreign language speakers \u2013 particularly immigrants \u2013 are typically unfamiliar with the concepts of reapportionment and redistricting. However, the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census form sparked a critical mass of opposition that, though likely unmeasurable, ramped up public interest in redistricting.<\/p>\n

\u201cCASA was part of the allies that defended the authenticity of the census at the Supreme Court. I am talking before 2020,\u201d Gutierrez said, \u201cstopping the desire to use that critical tool of democracy for public and private interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

The constitution mandates that all residents of the United States be counted every 10 years. Had the attempted change to count only citizens been successful, it would have affected the reapportionment of congressional seats assigned to each state after every census. It also would have skewed the federal formulas and reduced the amount of revenue allocated to those affected states, counties, and cities.<\/p>\n

Gutierrez said CASA, and the coalitions that opposed the proposed change, wanted to \u201cclarify that the census was not going to be used to identify the citizens from non-citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though the addition of the proposed question was ultimately quashed by the Supreme Court, the battle over the citizenship question and the census was a through-line to increased community education on voting and ultimately redistricting. Census work became the springboard to teach community members how to draw the maps that defined their environs \u2013 the places and neighborhoods that defined their communities.<\/p>\n

Counting the incarcerated<\/strong><\/h2>\n

However, Kris Henderson, Executive Director,\u00a0Amistad Law Project<\/a>, said \u201ctens of thousands\u201d of incarcerated individuals across Pennsylvania, who should be counted in the communities where they lived prior to incarceration, are still counted where jailed, often in more rural communities far from their homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were successful in framing it as a racial justice issue,\u201d Henderson said, and though legislative progress was made in addressing this phenomenon \u2013 prison gerrymandering \u2013 Henderson noted that the original legislation was amended, extending the benefit of being counted in home communities only to those serving less than 10 years. That amendment tweak, unless rescinded in a future legislative session, will result in excluding those prisoners serving longer terms until after the 2030 census.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were trying to take away our representation and this was just another example of that,\u201d Henderson contended.<\/p>\n

Yet, Henderson noted there have been more competitive primary races in the state and the final elections likely will be more competitive as well. \u201cIn years past, folks rightfully felt that it didn\u2019t matter one way or the other\u201d if they voted.<\/p>\n

That change \u2013 from indifference to participation \u2013 is a tectonic shift. \u201cRedistricting is more important than voting,\u201d Ogunmefun argued, but she advised community organizers and advocates in other states to \u201cstart the process at least six to seven years out\u201d before the beginning of the next census and redistricting cycle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ByKhalil Abdullah June 8, 2022 EMS...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49273,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49272\/revisions\/49273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}