Great Headlines from the past week

Noted Democrat-Turned-Republican Endorses Democrat-Turned-Republican Over Democrat-Turned-Republican for U.S. Senate




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No Constant But Change: No Decision On #Redistricting Appeal; Primary Still Set For April 24 -- Until It Isn't.

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I predict that Keegan Gibson and John Micek will be entertaining job offers from the NY Post in the near future.

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Chris Carney is not running

This story in the The Daily Item about a petition party for candidates in Union County caught my eye.
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Committee Chairman Rick Thomas said "We haven't heard if Carney is going to run again," Thomas said of former Democratic Rep. Chris Carney, who lost his seat in Congress to Marino in 2010. It's been widely reported that Carney planned to challenge Marino in the next election, but Thomas said there's been no news of late."If no one decides to declare at this point, it's possible we won't have a challenger on the ballot."
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There was also speculation that Carney might run in the 11thCD. He teased that he would run again but wouldn't answer the telephone calls of reporters or bloggers. There is a Draft Chris Carney Facebook page that is now dead and the Act Blue account has been deleted.
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Chris Carney landed a job with a defense contractor in Virginia and the redistricting probably put his old district out of reach. I posted in September that he was unlikley to run. Too bad, I'll take a blue dog in a Republican district over a tea bagger any day.

PA Supreme Court throws out reapportionment

Pa. high court rejects remapping plan

Wow. This is a surprise given that there are 4 Republicans and 3 Democrats on the court. Chief Justice Ronald Castille sided with the Democrats that the plan for the state legislature chopped up too many towns just to advantage the Republicans.


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Justice Joan Orie Melvin predictably thought that was OK. In a 2009 appearance in Wilkes-Barre she gave a speech that was inappropriately long for a warm up act, Melvin basically said "elect me so Republicans make of the majority of the PA Supreme Court, and we can rig the 2010 reapportionment for the Republicans." She later had a campiagn ad with a Soviet-era hammer-and-sickle inside the "O" in Obama's last name. Now she is the target of a criminal investigation.


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Calls grow for Supreme Court Justice Melvin to resign

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Right now it looks like the old maps wil be used in the upcoming election but that could change once the Supreme Court opinion is released.

Mike Carroll voted for the Congressional gerrymander

I'm surprised that there has not been more outrage over the new Congressional districts approved by the state legislature in the print and electronic media. But the reaction has been "so what, that's the way it is." Much like the national press accepting that every bill in the Senate needs 60 votes to pass without pointing out that the filibuster was rarely used in the past. The only people who are kicking up a fuss are bloggers.

Pittston State Rep Mike Carroll (D-118) voted for the new Congressional map joining 36 other Democrats in the PA legislature and 128 Republicans to approve it. I only met Carroll once at the 1st Blogfest so I don't know why he wants Republicans to win more elections to the US House of Representatives. Maybe he is looking to run for Congress in the future in the now Democratic friendly 17th CD when/if Tim Holden retires.

In the next election the 118th includes my little burgh of Plains Twp. and I'm open to helping a real Democratic primary challenger and if that fails maybe even a (shudder) Republican candidate. I'm not a one issue voter like the abortion hotheads or gun nuts but this vote betrays his party and the people of the the 11th Congressional District.

See NEPartisan for a Lackawanna County perspective


Selling Out PA in NEPA: Ken Smith, Sid Kavulich, Ed Staback

Pennsylvania Congressional Redistricting-Reaction

On my Facebook page:

2010 Republican GOP primary candidate David J Madeira "My house was redistricted out of the 10th"

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2010 Phyllis Mundy campaign manager Omeed Firouzi "My house was redistricted out of the 10th District too!"

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Me "My house was redistricted out of the 11th."

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Here is a list of Luzerne County towns moving from the 11th to the 17th.

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CITIES of Pittston and Wilkes-Barre and the TOWNSHIPS of Jenkins, Pittston, Plains and Wilkes-Barre and the BOROUGHS of Avoca, Dupont,Duryea, Exeter, Hughestown, Laflin, West Pittston, West Wyoming, Wyoming and Yatesville.

The Lackawanna County perspective comes from NEPartisan.

The 10th District, represented by Republican Tom Marino, used to be held by Chris Carney, a Democrat. Carney is still in the district, being from Susquehanna, but the district has gotten redder – it has lost upper Lackawanna County (Dem) and parts of Luzerne County to swing all over the place. It goes all the way to Mifflin, Juniata, and Perry Counties. Never heard of them? You wouldn’t. We’re from NEPA and that’s nowhere near here. Marino’s district, because of Republican efforts to stop Chris Carney from making a comeback, is now, geographically, the largest in the state next to the equally absurd 5th.

LuLac

Lou Barletta just won the biggest political lottery of his life. The gods of gerrymandering and redistricting have smiled brightly on the fair haired (okay dark haired boy) from the Mountain City. Lou Barletta now loses the Democratic bastions of Pittston, Wilkes Barre and Scranton....Wilkes Barre and Pittston speak for themselves in terms of Democratic supremacy. No Republican has served in Wilkes Barre since the Council-Manager form of government in the 60s and no one in Pittston has served as a member of the GOP since the late 1950s

Bill Vinsko vows to stay in the 11th CD race


“I am running in the 11th and I am staying put right now,” he said. “Here’s why: the reason is that the issues do not stop at party lines and the issues don’t stop at boundary lines. And I want to be the Congressman for Northeast Pennsylvania and for Central Pennsylvania, and my concern is not the lines but the people...“I am not planning on moving at this time,” Vinsko said. “With a nine-iron I could hit a ball into the 11th from my yard.”

Wow, If Bill can hit a 9 iron across the river to Kingston or into Hanover he is much better golfer than I am. But then just about everybody is. I gave up golf after the last time they figured out my handicap and I got special parking.

The law does not require a member of congress to live in the district he or she represents, just in the same state.

Lou Barletta denies having anything to do with the new bounderies which is doubted by many people.


“My original and one of my only requests was that we keep Luzerne County whole and together because it is my home county, so I was disappointed in the fact that Wilkes-Barre and the Wyoming Valley and Pittston were not included.” ...The former Hazleton Mayor noted that he won Luzerne in 2010 by approximately 10,000 votes and in 2008 by about 5,000, and guessed Harrisburg Republicans were likely planning for the entire decade – not just him....“It’s a ten year map. While I have been able to do well in Luzerne county, it’s a county that I’m from. So, I don’t think the map was drawn specifically for me.”

The Pennsylvania Republican Gerrymander

PA State House redistricting

Late this afternoon the new boundaries for the Pennsylvania State House and Senate were revealed. As usual Borys is on top of what it means for Lackawanna and Luzerne counties with a list of what towns will be switching districts. It's hard to visualize without a map to actually look at but I'm sure our local papers will have them tomorrow.

I don't cover Lackawanna County much so I will leave it to my friends at NEPartisan to analyze what this means to citizens north of the border with the move of the 115th to Monroe County and 117th and 118th that have been mostly in Luzerne County getting chunks of Lackawanna.

The 120th represented by Phyllis Mundy appears to have the least change picking up Edwardsville from the 117th which makes it a bit more Democratic as far a registration goes.

Mike Carroll's 118th seat has Monroe County towns taken out and is moving both north and south. According to this Plains Township will now be in the 118th despite being in the 121st for a long time and will now snake up to include some Lackawanna towns such as Moscow. I know both towns and they have different concerns. I live in Plains and we have more in common with W-B than Moscow or Pittston.

The 121st (Eddie Day Pashinski) will still be centered on Wilkes-Barre and W-B Township but will move south to include a part of Mountaintop, more of Hanover and throw in Laurel Run, Sugar Notch and Warrior Run. Ashley moves to the 119th ( I'm not sure how they pulled that one off) and the district makes into the Hazleton Area that has freshman Rep. Gerry Mullery objecting.

I only looked at 3 of the traditional 6 House Districts in Luzerne County and have yet to look at the Senate bounderies but is apparent that the people drawing the lines ignored geography, the common interests of the people invovled and common sense.

It may take 10 years but it would be good idea to take the redistricting process out of the hands of the politicians. Much as I advocate Judge's on Merit. Sometimes we need less politics deciding the ground rules.

Redistricting of PA Congressional seats

This is the map I spotted on Politics PA last month. It moves the 10th west and turns the 11th into something that looks like a lobster and Tim Holden's 17th district curls up and eats Lackawanna County. I don't think this will stand but I decided to run some numbers based on the 2008 election. I broke it down and found that this configuration gave President Obama 164,290 votes versus John McCain's 151,307. The old boundaries gave the President a big victory 203,162 to 156,262. Of course this is just back of the envelope math so please don't beat me up on it. In a way I like this map because it restores Luzerne County to one CD but I don't like it because Scranton had always been the anchor of the 10th CD until 2002. I'm a traditionalist and believe that Scranton and Wilkes-Barre should have different Congressmen.

Kevin Blaum, where are you?

Gerrymandering

During the last round of redistricting they took Scranton out of the 10th Congressional District adding it to the 11th and split Luzerne County in half putting the back mountain in the 10th. Above Average Jane points out that Montgomery county has been chopped into pieces and the Pocono Record reports that Monroe county was diced into six state senate districts after the 2000 census. An Inky Columnist says one family has Joe Sestak as it's Congressman but if you live in the garage Jim Gerlach is your guy and a block away it's Allyson Schwartz's territory.

This is nuts, as a minimum districts should make geographic sense as much as possible. Sure, there will have to be nibbling at the corners to meet the population requirements but the computer modeled machinations of both parties has to end. The only way to end this is to take the power to draw district lines away from the legislature and give it to an independent commission like other states. But the catch is that it would require amending the Pennsylvania Constitution and the clock is running out.

Inky: On Monday, a strong reform, backed by Common Cause and the League of Women Voters, will be unveiled in Harrisburg as House Bill 2420. The clock is ticking on it already. Because the reform requires a constitutional amendment, the bill must achieve first passage this June to prevent another Keystone gerrymander in 2011. (New Jersey has a relatively sane system.)
This bill would ordain that districts should be compact and contiguous, should not split municipalities needlessly, and should preserve communities of interest. Importantly, the bill would bar the use of voter data to lock in political advantage through computer modeling.

Luzerne County 118th State Rep Mike Carroll is a co-sponsor of HB 2420. Thanks Mike, now convince Todd, Phyllis, Yuddy, Eddie Day and Karen to get behind this effort.