Mapping Pennsylvania’s Future: Ready for 2025

Attendees included members of local groups across most of the commonwealth, as well as supporters from partner organizations and small local good-government groups eager to learn more about how PA’s state government works.

FDPA Chair Carol Kuniholm set the tone for the day with opening remarks:

“Many of us started this work naively hopeful that legislative leaders would listen, do the right thing, and we’d cheerfully go back to other things. But the more we learned, the more clear it became that gerrymandered districts are a foundational part of a dysfunctional, unaccountable legislature.

“As one former legislator told me sadly, ‘Gerrymandering is the keystone of Pennsylvania corruption and control.’ We’ve seen how that plays out in legislative dysfunction and cavalier disregard for the needs of all parts of Pennsylvania.”

“Our engagement, advocacy, and public outreach, along with similar work from some of our partner organizations, yielded better maps for this decade and hints that we may yet see better representation. Some legislators and supporters think we should be satisfied with that and leave things as they are. “

But we have no guarantees in law for better maps in the future. We have no promises that voters’ voices will be heard in future elections or that the long-unaddressed needs of the people of Pennsylvania will be remedied by policies and budgets that serve us all well. Voters in all parts of PA know they are still not being heard. They may not understand why. They may not understand who stands in the way of reasonable solutions. But they know we deserve better.”

As part of her remarks, Kuniholm noted that the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania and Common Cause Pennsylvania have been working on redistricting reform since the 1980s. Leaders of both organizations joined her in the opening session to express their continued support for reform, with LWVPA President Susan Gobreski accepting a recently unearthed poster noting League objections to gerrymandered 1992 congressional districts.

Breakouts throughout the day focused on two major areas:

• Best practices in creating effective independent redistricting commissions and ways those practices can be translated into law
• Tools for effective outreach and advocacy, including researching legislators, understanding PA’s legislative processes, and building stronger, broader advocacy networks

Regional roundtable lunch breakouts provided an opportunity for attendees to meet and network in person with other supporters and volunteers from their own parts of Pennsylvania. Many remarked on the energy and encouragement gained in sharing ideas with others eager to see Pennsylvania’s democracy thrive.

A highlight for many was a summary presentation, then a longer breakout session, with Simone Leeper, who led the Campaign Legal Center team in creation of their recent report: Redistricting Commissions in the 2021 Redistricting Cycle: Case Studies and Lessons Learned for 2031 and Beyond. As Leeper made very clear, not all redistricting commissions are the same. The most effective include legal protections for independence, transparency, public input, and prioritized criteria.

In feedback forms after the conference, attendees described breakouts as excellent, helpful, and important preparation for the work ahead. Many attendees wished they could attend all. But as some also noted, most breakouts will be available on video for review, sharing, and future discussion by local groups.

Find video of conference sessions here