From Fair Districts PA (http://www.fairdistrictspa.com):
As you know, Senate Bill 22 was recently buried by over 600 amendments in the House, bringing any hope of a vote there to a standstill. We’ve asked our legislative leaders to come back and finish the process, and they’ve affirmed their willingness to do this, but procedurally those amendments and the Aument amendment added by the Senate create a huge roadblock to timely passage.
Now we’re turning to Governor Wolf for help, asking him to call a special session. I’ve sent him an open letter, explaining our reasons for the request.
A special session would make it possible for the original bipartisan prime sponsors of both House and Senate bills to propose their bills again, incorporating all the best new safeguards and provisions negotiated by Senator Mike Folmer during the hearing process in the Senate, adding a new, nonpartisan failsafe proposed by Representative Eric Roe and introducing small adjustments in language to address legitimate concerns raised by legislators in thousands of conversations and email exchanges across the past 20 months.
Our state Constitution says the deadline for such a PA Constitutional amendment is three months before the next general election, but our Department of State requires several weeks to put advertisements in place. That means the real deadline is sometime in the latter half of July.
The original bills, Senate Bill 22 and House Bill 722, had more co-sponsors and bipartisan support than any other legislation introduced this session. We believe this reform would pass if legislators come back AND we continue to focus public attention and pressure on the process.
Join us in asking Governor Wolf to call a special session on legislative and congressional redistricting now at https://actionnetwork.org/letters/ask-gov-wolf-to-call-special-session-to-end-gerrymandering-in-pa.
We’ve all invested far too much to let the clock tick out quietly on this essential reform.
Leave a Reply