Gerrymandered? Lawsuit demands fairer congressional districts

Pennsylvania could be the next key battleground in the fight for redistricting reform following recent incremental victories against gerrymandering in places like North Carolina and Wisconsin.

The League of Women Voters and a group of voters from several of the most convoluted districts has filed a lawsuit over the Republican-drawn 2011 congressional map filed suit in state Commonwealth Court. The map faced opposition at the time, but the group points to subsequent elections as proof of partisan manipulation.

In the 2012 election, Republican candidates won 49 percent of the vote but wound up holding 13 of 18 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. That continued in 2014 and 2016, as their share of the vote hovered at about 55 percent.

“It’s an important issue for all voters, no matter their political persuasion,” said attorney Mimi McKenzie, legal director of the Public Interest Law Center. “The Republicans were in charge [of the last redistricting] but when the other party does it, it’s just as bad.”

The lawsuit filed Thursday, which will likely end up in the state Supreme Court upon appeal, asks the court to declare the 2011 map unconstitutional, halt its use in future congressional elections and order the creation of new maps.

Gerrymandering, a word coined by a 19th-century cartoonist, describes a political party’s efforts to redraw electoral boundaries in order to advantage its members and marginalize its opponents.

Sailboats, lobsters and Donald Duck: Pennsylvania’s most gerrymandered districts

Pennsylvania’s congressional boundaries are redrawn once a decade following the U.S. Census and are subject to an often-partisan vote in the Legislature before going to the governor. The 2011 map was drawn by Republicans and approved by a Republican, Gov. Tom Corbett.

To be sure, maps drawn by Democrats — Maryland is one nearby example — can have the telltale markers of gerrymandering.

Pennsylvania’s 2011 map resulted in major changes statewide with oddly shaped boundaries and districts that cover large swaths of otherwise unrelated communities. The 11th District currently held by Republican U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, for example, now stretches from Wyoming County in the northeast all the way to Shippensburg, a short drive from the Maryland line.

One of the petitioners, Camp Hill resident John Capowski, said it would’ve made sense to include neighbors in Cumberland and Dauphin counties in the same district. As it stands, the Widener University emeritus law professor said he’s had virtually no interaction with his 4th District congressman, Republican Scott Perry.

“The responses say, ‘Congressman so-and-so will take your views into consideration’,” he said. “I haven’t gotten any response that has engaged with my issues.”

In the 5th District, represented by Republican Glenn Thompson, petitioner Gretchen Brandt has channeled her energy into serving on her local school board rather than campaigning for Democrat congressional candidates.

“There’s no chance that a Democrat could ever win the PA 5th district because of the way the boundary is drawn,” the 43-year-old State College resident said.

The district stretches from State College, a Democratic stronghold due to Penn State University, north and west across more rural areas. Its boundaries stop just short of Erie, another Democratic stronghold that may have made it more competitive.

Odd shapes and unhappy constituents, however, aren’t enough to prove a partisan gerrymander in the courts.

For that, the group has turned to several statistical measures that have been persuasive in other court battles.

The first, the efficiency gap, was used to strike down Wisconsin’s state house districts. That case is now being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court and could lay the groundwork for even more challenges.

The efficiency gap measures how many votes are “wasted” by analyzing the number of votes cast for losing candidates and the number of votes cast for winning candidates in excess of 50 percent. In 2012, Democrats “wasted” 2.4 million votes in the 2012 congressional elections compared to Republicans’ 1.1 million “wasted” votes.

At 24.5 percent, Pennsylvania’s efficiency gap was the highest in the nation. According to the lawsuit, that shows the power of historically Democratic communities that were splintered, or “cracked,” and how many Democrats were packed into districts where their voting power was diminished.

Another measure, the mean-median gap, compares the gap between the average Democratic vote share statewide with the vote share in the median district. The larger the gap between those two, the more likely the districts have been manipulated to favor Republicans.

In 2012, the mean Democratic vote share statewide was nearly 50.5 percent compared to the median vote share of 42.8 percent. That resulted in a mean-median gap of 7.7 percent, the fifth largest nationwide in that election.

“That confirms there was a deliberate intent to maximize seats based on party,” McKenzie said.

A third technique, Markov chain analysis, is a bit more complicated.

McKenzie explained it this way: “The idea is that you take the actual 2011 plan and make a series of random changes to the edges–still keeping equal population in the districts and keeping the districts as compact and contiguous as they are under the actual plan. If the plan were drawn without political bias, when you make these random changes you would not expect to see any great change in the election outcomes.”

A group of mathematicians from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh who conducted the Markov analysis concluded that the 2011 congressional map had a Republican bias that could not be explained by other factors, such as the normal geographic distribution of Democrats and Republicans in rural and urban areas.

It’s part of a larger push for redistricting reform ahead of the next U.S. Census in 2020 and subsequent redistricting. Bipartisan legislation in the state House and Senate would throw out the current system that leaves much of the work to lawmakers in favor of a commission designed to reduce the influence of party leaders.

Such a change would require an amendment to the state constitution, a lengthy process that involves passing the Legislature in two separate sessions prior to a voter referendum.

If successful, however, the League of Women Voters’ lawsuit could dramatically change the current map and the makeup of Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation.

Drew Crompton, chief of staff to Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson County, saiid Scarnati would vigorously defend against the lawsuit. He noted the “staleness” of the lawsuit, six years on.

“Serious concerns exist concerning the disenfranchisement of 12 million Pennsylvania voters if any court sides with the plaintiffs and changes the rules six years after the plan was properly passed,” he said.

J.J. Abbott, a spokesman for Gov. Tom Wolf, said he “believes the redistricting process should be fair and transparent.” The office, however, has not yet reviewed the lawsuit.

Brandt, the school board member from the 5thDistrict, said she’s taught her 10-year-old daughter about gerrymandering.

“She views it as something that seems unfair,” Brandt said. “My 6-year-old, I don’t think he’s so interested yet.”

She hopes that attaching her name to the lawsuit–a voluntary measure for such a challenge–will serve as an example for them.

“The number one thing is political participation,” she said. “I hope they understand how important it is.”

About this project

Were Pennsylvania’s legislative and congressional districts unfairly drawn in 2011 to give one party an advantage? Does it matter? And what should be done to address it?

This series is a collaboration of WITF, PennLive, WHYY, WESA and WPSU.