The Republican controlled state legislature unveiled the newly
redistricted Congressional boundaries for Pennsylvania just hours
before the expected final votes with no time, and seemingly no
interest, for public comment. The General Assembly is expected to
approve the new map before the holiday recess, after which point
Governor Corbett will sign it into law.
While the entire state map has been blatantly gerrymandered to protect
Republican incumbents by solidifying their home districts, perhaps no
district is more egregious than the new PA-11th, which has been forced
upon the majority of Cumberland County. Lou Barletta (R-Luzerne
County) won a tightly contested race for Congress in 2010 after three
attempts to win that office, and has been rewarded by having his
Northeastern Pennsylvania district redrawn to exclude the Democratic
strongholds of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. It now snakes through nine
counties—Cumberland, Perry, Dauphin, Northumberland, Montour,
Columbia, Luzerne, Carbon, and Wyoming. Voters from Shippensburg to
Mechanicsburg could now be represented by a Congressman from Hazleton,
PA—100 miles northeast on I-81.
via PoliticsPA
“Including Cumberland County in a district reaching as far north as
Luzerne and Wyoming Counties diminishes the voice of Cumberland County
voters in Congress,” said Michael Fedor, chairman of the Cumberland
County Democratic Party. ”With the majority of this district’s
population base north of Schuylkill County, the concerns and interests
of Cumberland County voters—Democratic, Republican, or
Independent—will surely be a distant afterthought to Lou Barletta. I
am disappointed to see such games played with our Democracy.”
Barletta is best known for vastly overreaching laws he enacted as
mayor of Hazelton, aimed at illegal immigration, but which were found
by numerous courts to be unconstitutional. In Congress, he has voted
to slash Social Security and Medicare benefits, to defund National
Public Radio, and voted to repeal recent health care reforms that
closed the “doughnut hole” in Medicare and outlawed discrimination
against citizens with pre-existing health conditions.
“I am very interested to hear from Democrats willing to fight to make
Lou Barletta unemployed next year,” said Fedor.
