Drawn Out: The Value of a Vote, From Pennsylvania to the Supreme Court

Pennsylvania finds itself at the turning point in a major national fight over redistricting.

In January, the state Supreme Court ruled that the congressional districts drawn by the state legislature after the 2010 Census were unconstitutional because they intentionally favored the Republican Party. The court gave the Republican legislature just three weeks to draw a new map. Now, a February 19th deadline looms over the state. The state Supreme Court says if the legislature and governor can’t come to an agreement on a new map, the court will draw one themselves.

In this special podcast, “Drawn Out: The Value of a Vote, From Pennsylvania to the Supreme Court,” The Takeaway travels to some of the most gerrymandered districts in the state to find out how voters are feeling, and what’s being done to fix the map.

Pennsylvania’s congressional map.

(National Atlas)

Here are some of the voices you’ll find in this special episode:

Cindy Blair Miller is a voter in the gerrymandered 6th district who started paying attention to the contorted maps two years ago. Beth Lawn is a resident of Pennsylvania’s 7th district, and one of the petitioners in the case that was brought to the State Supreme Court.

Drew Crompton is the general counsel to Senate Republicans, and Chief of Staff to Joe Scarnati, the president pro tempore of the Pennsylvania state Senate. He was involved in 2011 when the maps were drawn, and is fighting it out with the court now on behalf of Republicans.

Tom Corbett was elected governor of Pennsylvania in 2010 and signed the partisan maps into law in 2011. And Terry Madonna is director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College. He’s a longtime political strategist in the state and is watching all of this play out from afar.

David Daley is the author of “Ratf**Ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count,” and he tells the story of the strategy that allowed Republicans to take control of state legislatures in 2010, and thereby take control of the map making process. Keesha Gaskins-Nathan, director of the Democratic Practice Program for the United States at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, explains why your district matters, and what some people are doing to monitor the district-drawing process.

Mira Bernstein is one of the mathematicians trying to figure standards for drawing districts. She is a member of the Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering group at Tufts University.

This episode is hosted by Todd Zwillich