FDPA identifies best amendments offered to SB 22 in the House

Hundreds of amendments have been offered to SB 22 since it was voted out of the House Rules Committee earlier this week. Fair Districts PA is watching three amendments with great interest.

Fair Districts PA has consistently called for the creation of an Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission that has certain key features. These include:

While many amendments have been put forward in the House of Representatives that would include some or even most of these key components, FDPA has identified a few which are noteworthy because of their content as well as the likelihood that they might be given serious consideration in the remaining days before the July 6 deadline for approval by both chambers.

FDPA does NOT support Amendment A07847 (Turzai) because it would apply only to redistricting of congressional - not state Senate and House - districts. FDPA believes the House should give favorable consideration to the following amendments:

FDPA believes these three amendments are also worthy of consideration by the House because they would delete the “poison pill” added by the Senate to create a system for electing appellate judges by geographic regions. Regardless of the merits of this concept, regional judicial districts are both controversial and unrelated to the issue of most concern to the voters of Pennsylvania - a fair and independent process for drawing congressional and legislative districts.