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.