From Fair Districts PA (http://www.fairdistrictspa.com):
On Election Day we saw clearly: maps matter.
Voting in our new Congressional districts yielded an even 9-9 split, rather than the lopsided 13-5 delegation of the past three Congressional sessions. As we all saw, the new districts opened the door to more competitive races and to new candidates more representative of our state population. For the first time ever, we’ll be sending four women to DC to represent us.
While we will all benefit from the greater accountability in DC afforded by more competitive Congressional elections, we continue to struggle under our badly gerrymandered state House and Senate maps. We’ll be working hard in the months ahead to show the harm of our distorted legislative districts.
Voters support reform!
This week four states passed legislation to safeguard their redistricting process. The measures in Michigan, Missouri and Colorado passed with 60-70 percent margins, clearly indicating strong bipartisan voter support.
We saw that same kind of bipartisan support on Tuesday when over 400 Fair Districts PA volunteers gathered nearly 20,000 petition signatures at polling places across the state.
While there are still many voters who are not sure what gerrymandering is, and others who think the recent state lawsuit solved the problem for good, many others were eager to sign the petition, eager to talk about their own gerrymandered state House or Senate maps, and clearly aware of the need for reform. (You can see a full update here).
Reclaiming Our Democracy Town Hall
Join us on December 1 from 10AM to 4PM in Harrisburg to prepare for next steps on the road to reform. We’ll be hearing from Sam Wang of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, Yurij Redensky of the Brennen Center for Justice, past legislators David Steil and Ken Lee and a growing list of advocates and leaders. Sessions will include panel discussion and Q and A on
- democracy priorities that accompany redistricting reform
- essential elements of effective redistricting reform legislation
- procedural rules that make allow leaders to block reform and proposed rule changes that would ensure that bipartisan solutions are given a hearing and brought to a vote
Panel sessions will be live streamed the day of the event and recorded for online viewing.
Find details and registration information here.
Thank you for voting! And for joining us in the fight to make every vote count.
PS: If your Rotary, club or other organization would like a free, well-prepared speaker on an interesting, timely topic, consider inviting a member of our speakers bureau to speak on gerrymandering and the need for reform. We have speakers willing to travel to any part of the state and to speak to any size group. Visit our speakers bureau page and fill out our request form to book a speaker for the new year. To date, our speakers have presented at almost 600 informational events, in almost every county of the state. Material is regularly updated with new information learned, so if you’ve had a speaker in the past consider inviting someone back to give an update.
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