A decision from a government body that raises questions is nothing new. That happens every day.
But reversing course to do something that makes sense? That’s a little more noteworthy, so imagine the surprise when a highly divided panel did just that.
The Legislative Reapportionment Commission is hard at work trying to carve up the state into new legislative districts following the 2020 Census. The group — composed of the majority and minority leaders of the state House of Representatives and Senate as well as Chairman Mark Nordenberg — has done an about-face on a recent decision to count incarcerated individuals in the communities they lived in before arrest.
With that move, thousands of inmates who are located in counties like Fayette or Indiana would have been counted in state legislative districts in areas like Pittsburgh or Philadelphia. The problem with this wouldn’t be where people voted, as someone actively serving a felony sentence in a state prison wouldn’t be casting a ballot. Instead, it would be how the state was divided up to represent the residents appropriately.
Revisiting the idea, the commission changed direction, but the members didn’t just throw out the old vote. They made a thoughtful and logical decision that will really consider where people live, where they receive services and where people need to be represented.
Originally, only those serving life sentences in state prisons — people who would never return to their home communities — would have been counted at Houtzdale or Huntingdon or Somerset where they are located in fact.
Now the commission counts people who will be in prison through the next census in 2030 at that facility.
It’s a change that Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward, R-Hempfield, called “a common-sense compromise.” Who would ever imagine that coming out of Harrisburg?
The downside of the vote is that it doesn’t change the deepest-drawn lines — the ones between parties. The vote came down to Republicans for and Democrats against, with Nordenberg breaking the tie.
While common sense and compromise are welcome, they would be more beneficial if both sides were bending on the vote.
The commission’s work will begin in earnest in November when the actual, usable census information is received and the business of drawing the maps gets serious. Let’s hope common sense and real, best-interest compromise will rule the day.
