Here it is, March already, and we still do not have final resolution on the decennial redistricting. These decisions will result in the district maps and boundaries that we will be using until 2032, so it’s critically important that they be drawn fairly. Pennsylvania needs to finally replace the last 10 years of gerrymandered districts drawn by a Republican legislature and signed off by then-Governor Tom Corbett in 2011.

The good news is that we have finalized US Congressional maps, and Chester County will remain wholly in the US 6th District currently represented by Chrissy Houlahan, with parts of Berks County.

We are still waiting for court decisions that will decide district boundaries for the PA General Assembly (House and Senate seats). East and West Bradford currently reside in the 158th House district served by Christina Sappey and the 19th Senate district held by Carolyn Comitta. The ‘latest’ and most likely – but not certain pending PA Supreme Court rulings – indicate that East Bradford moves to the 156th and West Bradford remains in the 158th.  Both townships are likely to remain in the 19th Senate District.

In those races, Democrat Christina Sappey will be running for re-election in the 158th, and two Democratic candidates (Chester County Recorder of Deeds Chris Pielli and West Goshen Supervisor Ashley Gagne) have announced they are running for the 156th open seat since current Rep. Dianne Herrin is retiring.

We will continue to keep you posted on the progress with redistricting as court challenges are resolved.

2022 is the year that new district maps for the US Congress and PA Senate and General Assembly are drawn and go into effect for this decade based on the decennial US Census. Since other states gained more population relative to Pennsylvania, we will be losing one Congressional seat (18 to 17). However, the population shifts towards Southeast PA and away from more northern and western rural areas also mean that district changes should be favorable to this area, and level the playing field somewhat.

The redistricting process is ongoing, but with significant partisan pressure by the Republican-majority legislature to put forward  gerrymandered Republican-leaning maps – although the state continues to lean Democratic.

The Legislative Redistricting Commission (LRC) can vote to adopt final state legislative maps any day now, but there’s a 30-day period to file legal challenges after they do that, which overlaps with the current February 15-March 9 petition-signing period for candidates to get on the May 17 Primary Election.

So, of course the Republicans are delaying final approval of fair maps and are insisting that the 2022 election should go forward with the 2010-based gerrymandered maps instead.  A lawsuit (by Democrats) has been filed in Commonwealth Court urging a change in the election calendar (possibly just a delay in petitions) to ensure new state legislative maps can be used for the 2022 election. So the election calendar remains volatile.

We will keep you posted. But it seems likely that the Bradford Dems will be knocking on doors later than the normal timeframe to ask for your signature on nominating petition forms for Dem candidates.