CCFD Statement on proposed House and Senate Maps
I am submitting testimony here in pieces due to limited space and characters. Part 1 IN THE LEGISLATIVE REAPPORTIONMENT COMMISSION OF PENNSYLVANIA JAN SWENSON, NADINE BOULWARE, ELLYN ELSHANAWANEY, WILLIAM S. GORDON, and JASON MAGIDSON, AGGRIEVED PERSONS I. Introduction Individual aggrieved persons and parties are citizens and registered voters of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (“the Aggrieved Persons”), and in the case of Jan Swenson and Jason Magidson, are members of Concerned Citizens for Democracy (“CCFD”), a Section 501(c)(3) tax-exempt, nonprofit, unincorporated association that since February 1917 has been studying and developing a neutral and judicially manageable and enforceable remedy to prevent partisan gerrymandering in Pennsylvania. CCFD submitted two briefs in the case of League of Women Voters of Pa. v. Commonwealth of Pa., 175 A.3d 282 (Pa. 2018) (hereinafter “LWV”), which briefs included a step-by-step guide to neutral redistricting. The briefs were viewed favorably by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court (“the Court”) and its retained expert on redistricting. The 2018 Congressional remedial map that the Court ultimately issued reflected the methodology and many boundary choices of the proposed Congressional map that CCFD submitted. We are respectfully requesting that the Legislative Reapportionment Commission (“LRC”) use the same methodology used to create the 2018 remedial Pennsylvania Congressional map (“the 2018 remedial map”) in its drafting and reformation of the proposed Pennsylvania House and Senate district maps. We believe that the Court will determine that the current LRC maps are unconstitutional as failing to comport with the compactness requirement of the Pennsylvania Constitution and LWV. More specifically, many of the districts in the proposed maps lack compactness, and numerous political subdivisions have been split even though that has not been absolutely necessary. Furthermore, we believe that the Court will find that the proposed maps violate Article I, Section 5 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, that is, the Free and Fair Elections Clause (“FEEC”). As the Court held in LWV, the FEEC bars partisan and individual gerrymandering. As a result, we believe the LRC, and ultimately the Court, should adopt explicit design standards for districting. The adoption of such standards will serve two purposes. First, if the LRC utilizes such standards, its maps will minimize, if not eliminate, partisan gerrymandering. Second, such standards will provide the courts with a judicially manageable standard they can use to evaluate proposed maps and determine whether partisan gerrymandering has occurred. The end result will be maps that contain compact districts that are composed of whole political subdivisions to the greatest extent possible. II. Why Compact Districts Matter and What They Achieve 1. Compact districts tend to create a natural distribution of (a) conservative districts in rural parts of a state, (b) liberal districts in urban parts of a state, and (c) swing districts in parts of a state (i) with mixed voting populations (usually suburban areas), or (ii) that contain both factory towns and small cities. 2. Compact districts with smooth borders allow courts to easily detect partisan manipulation of district lines; districts with jagged edges and non-compact boundaries are prima facie evidence of individual or partisan gerrymanders. As a result, the requirement of compact districts containing whole political subdivisions provides a judicially manageable standard for the detection of gerrymandering. 3. Once a prima facie case exists, the burden should shift to the proponent of the map to provide a non-partisan reason for the jagged boundary. Concomitantly, the party critical of the map should be allowed to present direct and/or circumstantial evidence of partisan drafting, such as a pattern of “packing” and “cracking,” that is, the fragmenting of citizens (a) by party affiliation, race, and/or a common language, or (b) that facilitates individual gerrymanders to favor or disfavor particular candidates. 4. The application of the Pennsylvania Constitution’s four drafting criteria, see Article II, Section 16, can be measured mathematically, see LWV, and as such provide a judicially manageable standard. Such measurements enable courts both to analyze a single map and compare competing maps. The splitting of counties, townships, wards, precincts, and other political subdivisions, as well as compactness and population, can be measured and calculated mathematically and thereby held to an objective standard. 5. CCFD offers a step-by-step method of drawing maximally compact maps that comply with the four main Constitutional drafting criteria. That method is set forth in detail infra, but can be summarized as follows. Districts should consist of whole political subdivisions (counties or large cities), where possible, and then include the next level of political subdivisions by adding them at the district borders until equal population of districts is achieved. Subdivisions should be added at the district borders in layers, with split subdivisions occurring only as absolutely necessary to achieve equal population. As a result, district borders almost always will be straight lines or run along existing political subdivision boundaries.