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A consequential off-year election is weeks away and our mailboxes are stuffed with political flyers.
One, from a free-markets organization known as the Commonwealth Leaders Fund, opposes the retention of three Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices who were elected as Democrats.
The flyer states: "The liberal Supreme Court gerrymandered our congressional districts to help Democrats win."
That statement is untrue. In fact, the opposite is true. You can look it up.
In early 2018, a divided Supreme Court decided in League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania vs. Commonwealth that a 2011 reapportionment of Pennsylvania's congressional districts by the (gerrymandered) state General Assembly "clearly, plainly and palpably violates the Constitution of the Commonwealth ..."
Gerrymanders are all about how congressional and legislative borders are drawn. The word gerrymander is a mash-up describing a Massachusetts state Senate map, approved in 1812 by Gov. Elbridge Gerry, that looked like a salamander. Hence, gerrymander.
Gerrymanders have nothing to do with fairness in our elections and everything to do with political power. When politicians decide who their voters will be with districting maps, certain votes are certain to count, and other votes are meaningless. The result is predetermined. At base, gerrymandering is legalized election fixing.
Which brings us to Pennsylvania in 2011. Controlling both the General Assembly and the Governor's Mansion, Republicans used that power to create a gerrymander that would make even Elbridge Gerry blush.
In political terms, Pennsylvania is described as a purple state, almost equally divided between red Republicans and blue Democrats.
But the congressional map approved in 2011 created 13 districts that Republicans were sure to win and five districts that Democrats would win.
To achieve that result, the Republican-controlled General Assembly sliced and diced the state. Montgomery County, for instance, was placed in five congressional districts.
In February 2018, Justice Debra McCloskey Todd wrote that the 2011 gerrymander violated the Free and Fair Elections Clause of the Pennsylvania Constitution. Ordered to prepare a map with districts that were contiguous, compact and roughly equal in population with as few jurisdictional splits as possible, the General Assembly and the governor, Democrat Tom Wolf, were unable to agree.
The court then imposed a map that accurately reflected Pennsylvania's electorate; the 2018 election yielded nine Republican U.S. representatives and nine Democrats; that division remained the same in 2020.
Pennsylvania lost a seat in the 2020 census, and again the Supreme Court had to impose a map amid political gridlock. The new map resulted in nine Democratic representatives and eight Republicans in the 2022 election.
In the 2024 election, Republicans flipped two seats, with the GOP now holding 10 of 17 seats. In short, the current districts are responsive to political trends and currents.
Could Pennsylvania again become gerrymandered? Of course. The best way to protect our votes is legislation to create a multipartisan citizen panel to draw districts that are contiguous, compact and roughly equal in population, with few jurisdictional splits, as prescribed by the state Constitution and advocated by Fair Districts PA for nearly a decade.
Our constitutional right to have our votes count is too precious to be left in the hands of politicians.
Clippinger is a retired journalist living in Duncansville.