Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District, which has been described as Goofy kicking Donald Duck, is an example of extreme gerrymandering. (League of Women Voters/CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)
Bill White Of The Morning Call
Grassroots support growing for ending gerrymandering
“Nothing’s riding on this except the, uh, First Amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country.”
— Jason Robards, as Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee, talking to Woodward and Bernstein in “All the President’s Men.”
Pennsylvania government hasn’t been offering us a lot of good news.
So as I watched the Fellowship Hall at First Presbyterian Church of Allentown filling up and overflowing for last Friday night’s program on “Gerrymandering and How to Create Fair Districts in Pennsylvania,” I was particularly encouraged. I estimated the crowd at close to 400 people, and I suspect most of them departed that night with new determination to do their part to change the way election districts are drawn in our state.
Of all the good government reforms that have been floating around Harrisburg, this probably is the most important. And it’s on the clock, since the Legislature’s failure this session to pass a bill would guarantee that nothing changes until 2031.
How important is it that we transform this system from an incumbent protection plan to a way of legitimately adjusting for population changes every 10 years?
Well, there’s nothing riding on this except, uh, democracy, government accountability and the ability of people to choose their elected representatives instead of the other way around.
Read more at http://www.mcall.com/opinion/white/mc-bw-gerrymandering-20170201-story.html.
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