Testimony to 1/15/2022 LRC Hearing: Bibiana Boerio
Bibiana Boerio TESTIMONY BEFORE PA LEGISLATIVE REAPPORTIONMENT COMMISSION Saturday, January 15, 2022 As Delivered with Amendment 2022 01 15 LRC Testimony b2 - 1 - 17-Jan-22 Thank you, Mr.Chairman, Leaders Ward, Costa, Benninghoff and McClinton for this opportunity to offer testimony today. I wanted to speak for three reasons. First, I want to publicly thank Chairman Nordenberg for stepping up to serve. Last May, when I saw the announcement that the PA Supreme Court had appointed Chancellor Emeritus Nordenberg to serve as Chair of the LRC, I had three distinct reactions. • First, what a great choice! • Second, why in the world would he ever agree to do this? • Third, I knew he would do it because he is a man whose career has demonstrated the value he places on public service and his courage in taking on tough challenges. So why do I think he is a great choice? My credentials are modest in comparison with the academic standards of yesterday’s expert witnesses. I have an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Business. I completed a 32-year career with Ford Motor Company retiring as the Managing Director of Jaguar Cars, Ltd in Britain. Like Rep. Jones, I have many years of experience in the corporate world, needing to solve complex problems with practical solutions and imperfect information. Along the way, I was asked to serve on the Pitt Main Board of Trustees. In that capacity, I came to know Chancellor Nordenberg as a man of integrity, a true professional, deliberate and thoughtful in his actions and his deeds. I saw the respect with which he treated faculty, staff, and most importantly, the students and their parents. And that includes two of my nieces – both of whom he knew by name when he would see them on the Oakland Campus. And both of whom send their regards. [I will note that I have not seen Chancellor Nordenberg since the 2017 launch of the Pitt Cyber Center in Oakland and a subsequent Pitt Cyber Center event in 2018.] So why did I question that he should take on this role? Following my retirement from Ford, I worked on Capitol Hill as Chief of Staff for a Member of Congress. I came back to Latrobe to care for my mother. I ran for Congress in 2018 (and lost) in Pennsylvania's 14th Congressional District. I have watched the country and the commonwealth lose the sense of “working together for the common good.” I feared that whatever the Chairman did to be fair and equitable would be turned against him. I suspected that he would be personally attacked by those who aren’t interested in fairness and equity. But I think it’s important that those attacks do not go unanswered. And that’s the second reason I wished to speak. As I learned from studying the testimony from previous hearings, the preliminary maps are a major improvement from the present boundaries for our state legislature. As we heard yesterday, the Pennsylvania Constitution provides criteria for determining boundaries and the Federal Voting Rights Act requires equal opportunity for participation within those boundaries. The latest Census identified two clear trends: • a shift in population from rural areas to suburban and urban areas and • an increased percentage of non-white residents. We heard at length about those demographic changes across our commonwealth as well as specifics by county and municipality. I don’t need to revisit those details. I just want to emphasize that to follow the PA Constitution, the Voting Rights Act, and the underlying American principle of “one person, one vote”, the math determines that representation must shift from the SW to the SE, from rural areas and must appropriately reflect the growth in our non-white population. Simply put, the preliminary maps do just that. They reflect the results of the Census and the law. Further, the Commission’s openness to the testimony during the public hearings gives comfort that you are open to making further improvements in the final maps. My third reason for wishing to speak is to offer a request. This decennial redistricting effort has been marked by a vast improvement in transparency and in the use of sophisticated tools employed by professionals to help shape the legislative boundaries. Leader Benninghoff, yesterday, you commented to Professor Baretto that you couldn’t imagine what it was like to do this work 30 years ago. I can tell you. 46 years ago, on the 16th floor of Pitt’s Cathedral of Learning, I was taught to develop Monte Carlo simulations using IBM punch cards to run on IBM mainframe computers. We certainly don’t want to go back to punch cards and mainframes. And the people of the commonwealth of PA don’t want to lose the professionalism, transparency and fairness brought to this process by Chairman Nordenberg and the Members of this Commission. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you all for your service to our commonwealth. And Leader Benninghoff, a belated Happy Birthday. Addendum: Followup to question to me raised by Leader Benninghoff about further areas for improvement and his closing remarks. 1) I appreciate his closing remarks indicating that his questions were indicative of his engagement and his willingness to learn from each other. Throughout my career, I have always believed that strength comes from testing assumptions to reach a better solution. 2) It is with this view, that I suggest to Leader Benninghof, that the present PA HB 2207 as passed out of Committee and under consideration, is in effect, going back. It may not go the whole way back to the age of punch cards and mainframes. However, from the standpoint of honest, independent, citizen engagement – not tethered to incumbent political positions, there is no question that HB 2207 is not a good faith effort to carry on the improvements made by this Commission.