Part 6 CCFD Testimony
Part 6 X. The LRC Should Resist Personal Gerrymanders and Make Minor Adjustments to Prevent Incumbents from Facing Each Other in the Same Districts. Personal gerrymanders violate Article I, Sections 1 and 5 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, provide as follows: § 1. Inherent rights of mankind. All men are born equally free and independent and have certain inherent and indefeasible rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, of acquiring, possessing and protecting property and reputation, and of pursuing their own happiness. § 5. Elections. Elections shall be free and equal; and no power, civil or military, shall at any time interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage. As all citizens of age have an equal right to run for office, personal gerrymanders aid or hinder an individual from running for office. Personal gerrymanders are particularly harmful to democracy because they discriminate against citizens in the right to run for office. No one should be favored or disfavored in running for office. XI. Conclusions The United States Supreme Court in Veith (2004) and Rucho (2019) said it is impossible to create a judicially manageable standard to evaluate and judge partisan manipulated maps, but that is not the case. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court already has created and applied such a standard in LWV and the remedial map. Compact districts that follow historic political boundaries not only drive out partisan maps but are also healthy for democracy. Compact districts that follow existing political boundaries make it easier for candidates to communicate with voters, for challengers to conduct door-to-door or other low-cost campaign strategies, and for elected officials to communicate with their constituents. For these and the many other reasons set forth supra, compactness is essential to democracy. The 2018 Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s Congressional map is a model for drawing compact districts that should be followed with all three 2021 redistricting maps: the Pennsylvania House, the Pennsylvania Senate, and the Pennsylvania Congressional Maps. The LRC should edit the proposed maps by making districts more compact and following the CCFD layering technique in modifying the proposed districts. After making the districts more compact, only the most minor modifications should be made to achieve subordinate criteria. To the extent that the LRC wants to try to achieve various subordinate criteria, it should follow the CCFD method by using smaller political subdivisions on the borders between proposed districts in a layered approach. We respectfully ask the LRC to honor the drafting criteria in LWV and thereby preserve the most important tool for fighting partisan gerrymandering ever articulated by any court in the United States: compact districts of equal population composed of whole political subdivisions to the maximum extent possible. /s Brian A. Gordon _________________________________ Brian A. Gordon Gordon & Ashworth, P.C. 168 Idris Road Merion Station, PA 19066 (610) 667- 4500 Briangordon249@gmail.com On behalf of Aggrieved Persons Jan Swenson, Nadine Boulware, Ellyn Elshanawaney, William S. Gordon, and Jason Magidson