{"id":9039,"date":"2022-02-24T23:25:33","date_gmt":"2022-02-25T04:25:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?p=9039"},"modified":"2022-07-02T23:40:48","modified_gmt":"2022-07-03T03:40:48","slug":"the-gop-showed-us-who-they-are-with-challenge-to-pa-house-map","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?p=9039","title":{"rendered":"The GOP showed us who they are with challenge to Pa. House map"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Originally published by the Pennsylvania Capital-Star on February 24, 2022<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n


\nPennsylvania House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, R-Centre, recently filed suit against the House district map produced by the Pennsylvania Legislative Reapportionment Commission (LRC).<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"\"
<\/i> Marc Stier (Twitter)\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Most\u00a0advocates of fair districting think the new\u00a0district lines are an enormous improvement over those currently in place\u00a0for two reasons:\u00a0they reflect the changing demographics of our commonwealth and they unwind two decades of extreme partisan gerrymandering, which\u00a0I\u00a0<\/span>documented in a recent paper<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Predictably,\u00a0they\u00a0have\u00a0been harshly attacked by Republicans. The background for their\u00a0criticism is\u00a0fairly obvious\u2014while the new districts\u00a0are, by standard metrics,\u00a0still somewhat tilted in favor of\u00a0Republicans, they\u00a0are\u00a0far less gerrymandered\u00a0in their favor\u00a0than\u00a0the\u00a0districts Republicans drew for themselves in the last two decades.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

It is hard not\u00a0to conclude that when it comes to legislative\u00a0districts,\u00a0like\u00a0presidential\u00a0races,\u00a0Republicans\u00a0are\u00a0not willing to accept any rules that do not guarantee they\u00a0win elections.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Benninghoff\u2019s\u00a0suit raises\u00a0two\u00a0substantive arguments\u00a0that deserve attention\u2014not least because they show us where the Republicans stand on critical issues before us.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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We have a long way to go in addressing racial segregation, but a good first step is to draw legislative districts that encourage Black and white people to work together politically.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The suit claims that\u00a0there is no justification for\u00a0focusing on statewide\u00a0partisan fairness in\u00a0drawing\u00a0district\u00a0lines,\u00a0that is,\u00a0for\u00a0the\u00a0effort to ensure that the proportion of the seats won by each party should roughly be similar to the proportion of votes won by each party statewide.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It holds\u00a0that\u00a0the goal of proportionality\u00a0is not one of the\u00a0standards explicitly mentioned in Article 2,\u00a0Section 16 of\u00a0the\u00a0Pennsylvania\u00a0Constitution,\u00a0which says that\u00a0districts should be compact, contiguous,\u00a0equal in population and not divide county and local political entities unless\u00a0\u201cabsolutely necessary.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

However, the state Constitution explicitly says in Section 2 of Article I that all power is inherent in the people and in Section 5 that \u201celections shall be free and equal and no power\u2026shall\u2026prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And the structure of government set out in the Constitution is designed to create a republic, which, following James Madison\u2019s definition in the <\/span>Federalist Papers<\/span>,\u00a0is a government in which\u00a0\u201call power is derived directly or indirectly from the people.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The Pennsylvaania Supreme Court ruled in its 2018 decision on congressional maps that district lines that provide a permanent and substantial advantage to one party or another fundamentally violates the principles and design of the government created by the Pennsylvania Constitution. <\/span><\/p>\n

We need unbiased districts to ensure that shifts in public opinion about parties and issues are registered in the composition of the General Assembly. Thus, avoiding partisan bias is one of the necessities that allows for some departure from explicit standards in Article 2, Section 16. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The second complaint about the House\u00a0district\u00a0map is that\u00a0it\u00a0overrides\u00a0what is said to be\u00a0the\u00a0\u201cnatural\u00a0political geography\u201d of the state.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Critics of the LRC\u2019s work say that maps should reflect a natural\u00a0Republican\u00a0political\u00a0advantage\u00a0created\u00a0by\u00a0the tendency of Democrats to live together in urban areas.\u00a0This same argument is found in\u00a0<\/span>Commonwealth Court Judge Patricia A. McCullough\u2019s decision to pick the House Republican plan for congressional districts.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

One\u00a0response to this claim is\u00a0that\u00a0the\u00a0importance of eliminating partisan bias\u00a0justifies\u00a0some effort to override any natural Republican advantage.\u00a0It is one of the necessary grounds for breaking district lines.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

But, more importantly,\u00a0there is no such thing as a natural political geography.\u00a0That Democrats live together in urban areas is\u00a0a product not of individual choices\u00a0but\u00a0of\u00a0a long history\u00a0of\u00a0public\u00a0policy\u00a0that has\u00a0led to the flight of\u00a0a\u00a0disproportionately white\u00a0middle class from our cities to the suburbs and\u00a0a\u00a0concentration of\u00a0disproportionately\u00a0Black,\u00a0poor,\u00a0and working-class\u00a0people in our cities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Those\u00a0public policies\u00a0include\u00a0transportation infrastructure that encouraged white flight;\u00a0redlining, which\u00a0undermined urban neighborhoods and\u00a0limited the ability of Black people to accumulate wealth;\u00a0racist deed covenants\u00a0that,\u00a0until recently,\u00a0blocked Black people from moving to the suburbs;\u00a0and\u00a0zoning laws that make it difficult to build low-income housing in the suburbs.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Given this history,\u00a0there is a strong case to be made\u00a0that\u00a0not only the Pennsylvania Constitution but\u00a0the\u00a014th amendment to the United States\u00a0Constitution and the federal Voting Rights Act requires\u00a0that the\u00a0LRC\u00a0make an effort\u00a0to\u00a0draw lines that\u00a0<\/span>minimize<\/span>\u00a0rather than recognize any so-called \u201cnatural\u201d\u00a0Republican political advantage.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This would\u00a0go a long way\u00a0in ensuring\u00a0that voters in urban communities, and especially Black and Latino voters,\u00a0are able\u00a0to elect legislators who represent them, not just by being packed into small districts that overwhelmingly elect Democrats but by being spread into a larger number of districts where they\u00a0can form coalitions with other voters to elect legislators who will represent their interests.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

It shouldn\u2019t surprise us that\u00a0a\u00a0Republican Party focused on\u00a0exacerbating racial tensions in order to motivate their shrinking base of white voters\u00a0to\u00a0come to the polls would\u00a0bolster their position\u00a0in a redistricting case\u00a0by relying on arguments\u00a0that\u00a0tacitly rest on\u00a0conditions created by\u00a0white supremacy. <\/span><\/p>\n

But that it is one more reason to reject those arguments. A growing amount of research shows that breaking down racial segregation\u2014which has been\u00a0<\/span>increasing,\u00a0not decreasing<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0in recent years\u2014is a\u00a0<\/span>key to reducing\u00a0partisan division<\/span><\/a> based on race. <\/span><\/p>\n

We have a long way to go in addressing racial segregation, but a good first step is to draw legislative districts that encourage Black and white people to work together politically. That is what the LRC\u2019s House district maps have done. The courts, as well as most voters. should applaud the commission members for that work.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally published by the Pennsylvania Capital-Star on February 24, 2022 Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, R-Centre, recently filed suit against the House district map produced by the Pennsylvania Legislative Reapportionment Commission (LRC). Marc Stier (Twitter)\u00a0 Most\u00a0advocates of fair districting think the new\u00a0district lines are an enormous improvement over those currently in place\u00a0for two reasons:\u00a0they reflect the changing demographics of our commonwealth and they unwind two decades of extreme partisan gerrymandering, which\u00a0I\u00a0documented in a recent paper.\u00a0 Predictably,\u00a0they\u00a0have\u00a0been harshly attacked by Republicans. The background for their\u00a0criticism is\u00a0fairly obvious\u2014while the new districts\u00a0are, by standard metrics,\u00a0still somewhat tilted in favor of\u00a0Republicans, they\u00a0are\u00a0far less gerrymandered\u00a0in their favor\u00a0than\u00a0the\u00a0districts Republicans drew for themselves in the last two decades. It is hard not\u00a0to conclude that when it comes to legislative\u00a0districts,\u00a0like\u00a0presidential\u00a0races,\u00a0Republicans\u00a0are\u00a0not willing to accept any rules that do not guarantee they\u00a0win elections.\u00a0 Benninghoff\u2019s\u00a0suit raises\u00a0two\u00a0substantive arguments\u00a0that deserve attention\u2014not least because they show us where the Republicans stand on critical\u2026 Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1896,"featured_media":9040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[42,237,201],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-elections-and-voting","category-legislative-districts","category-published-op-eds-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screen-Shot-2022-02-04-at-3.22.05-PM.png?fit=881%2C503&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p35YuU-2lN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1896"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9039"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9044,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9039\/revisions\/9044"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}