Introducing House Bill 31 and Senate Bill 131
Over 400 Pennsylvanians registered for a March 25 Zoom webinar introducing constitutional amendments to create a Pennsylvania independent redistricting commission.
Just hours before the webinar began, Senator Kearney’s Senate Bill 131 was officially introduced in the PA Senate with 14 cosponsors. It’s now available for review online.
On the webinar, Carol Kuniholm, Chair of Fair Districts PA, gave a brief summary of the background for the bills:
- Review of over 2 dozen bills across 4 decades, many with large numbers of co-sponsors from both parties
- Feedback from thousands of meetings with legislators across the past 9 years
- Mapping contests to test out prioritized criteria and voting mechanisms
- Insights from community mapping conversations and testimony submitted to the 2021 Legislative Reapportionment Commission
- Review and input from national redistricting experts
Philip Hensley-Robin, Executive Director of Common Cause Pennsylvania shared lessons learned from redistricting commissions in other states and explained the importance of a genuinely independent commission. Kuniholm and Hensley-Robin were joined by Cameron Allen, legislative director in the office of Senator Tim Kearney. Allen explained the structure of the bill and its key provisions:
- Commission independence in both selection and action
- Transparency: open meetings and public input
- Prioritized mapping criteria
Amy Widestrom, Executive Director of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, and Lauren Cristella, President and CEO of Committee of Seventy, joined the event to share insights into their own organizations’ investment in the world of redistricting reform.
An unexpected bonus was a call-in from House Prime Sponsor Steve Samuelson with an update on House Bill 31, which he announced has 38 cosponsors and will be introduced the week of April 7. Rep. Samuelson urged continued outreach to legislators. As he told viewers on the webinar: “Contacts you make with your legislator in your community do make a difference!”
Thank those who have co-sponsored and ask them for further support. If they haven’t already co-sponsored, ask them to do so and share any information they need.
Here are materials to help you in that outreach:
- Senate Bill 131: co-sponsor memo, text, cosponsors, status, action
- House Bill 31 co-sponsor memo
- One-Page Summary: HB 31 & SB 131
- PA Redistricting: Current vs Proposed
- FDPA 12-page Report: Why PA needs an independent redistricting commission
- Campaign Legal Center: Redistricting Commissions in the 2021 Redistricting Cycle