Republicans in the Pennsylvania General Assembly are cheering the approval of new congressional districts, though what the accomplishment means remains unclear.
Senators approved a congressional district map created by Lehigh County resident Amanda Holt on Monday, capping off a redistricting process that involved more than a dozen public meetings over several months.
House Bill 2146 includes congressional districts crafted by Holt and modified by the House State Government Committee chaired by Rep. Seth Grove, R-York, the sponsor of the bill. The map was selected from 19 submitted to the committee by the public based on constitutionally mandated criteria and input at the public meetings.
“This is truly a historic day in our state. Never in our state’s history has a congressional map been drawn by a resident and then approved by the legislature,” Grove said. “It’s now up to (Gov. Tom) Wolf to follow the will of the people and sign this bill into law.”
States redraw state and federal legislative maps every decade using updated census data to ensure fair representation, though the process is contentious and often rife with gerrymandering aimed at giving an advantage to one political party or the other.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2018 rejected a map approved in 2011 by the Republican-controlled General Assembly and executive branch for leaning in favor of Republicans. Lawmakers vowed a more transparent process this time around, though the approved map needs Wolf’s approval.
The General Assembly delivered HB 2146 on the Jan. 24 deadline set by the Wolf administration, but what happens next remains unclear.
Wolf aired his grievances with the “highly skewed map” in late December, when he took issue with changes made in the House committee, population equality, splits in communities of interest, fairness, and Grove’s allegedly “disgraceful” leadership of the process.
Wolf released his own version of ideal congressional districts two weeks ago.
The General Assembly’s approval also comes amid pending lawsuits that seek to have the Commonwealth Court redraw congressional districts. Grove and others repeatedly called on the governor to negotiate the details of the map, but he declined.
Grove has touted feedback on the map from the Princeton Gerrymandering Project and Dave’s Redistricting – an app that gauges fairness – as evidence the proposal is nonpartisan.
“This is an eight-eight-one,” he said when the House approved HB 2146 earlier this month. “Eight Democratic districts, eight Republican districts and one toss-up.”
House Speaker Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster, and House Majority Rep. Kerry Benninghoff, R-Centre, applauded HB 2146’s passage Monday and called on Wolf to sign the bill.
“This map is the end result of the most transparent redistricting process in Pennsylvania history that included more than a dozen public hearings, collecting hundreds of public comments, and advancing a map introduced by a member of the public, and not legislators,” they said in a prepared statement.
“The citizen-crafted map in House Bill 2146 was the only map introduced to follow the guidelines and standards set forth in the Constitution, and by all measures, puts candidates on equal footing heading into the primary and general elections, so elections can be decided by the will of the people and not political gerrymandering,” the statement read. “In the state that created modern American democracy, every Pennsylvanian can take pride in once again going the extra mile to ensure our processes are open and the voices of the people are held above those seeking political influence.”
