(tranquil ambient music) - Live from your public media studios, WVIA presents Keystone Edition Reports, a public affairs program that goes beyond the headlines to address issues in Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania.

This is Keystone Edition Reports and now moderator, Larry Vojtko.

- Hello, I'm Larry Vojtko.

It's been months in the making, but the new state house Senate and US congressional legislative maps are out.

However, that doesn't mean the process is at an end, there still may be court challenges.

These new maps could have some far reaching effects with some candidates.

Some state senators will have to make their names known to a whole new territory, and some voters like you may not recognize the names on the ballot this May.

We have experts here to help break down what happened and what it will mean as you head to the polls.

If you have questions you'd like answered tonight, send an email to keystone@wvia.org or tag us on social with a #keystonereports.

WVIA's Paul Lazar takes a closer look at what redistricting is and why it happens.

(upbeat ambient music) - What is redistricting and why does it happen?

Every 10 years after the US census numbers are released, the US House and state legislatures are redrawn in an effort to keep equal representation in terms of population and other demographics.

When the districts are redrawn, it could mean that voters will be represented by someone other than the representative they're already familiar with.

And power can shift from one party to the other.

The process affects both federal, congressional and state legislative districts.

State maps are still being revised in Pennsylvania by the Legislative Reapportionment Commission.

The five person panel responsible for drawing the House and Senate maps.

The commission has until February 18th to release and vote on the final versions.

If you want to see how you're voting district may change, there's a link to the proposed maps on wvia.org.

For Keystone Edition Reports, I'm Paul Lazar.

- Well, let me start by saying right before, right after we did that intro, there has been a change that the Legislative Reapportionment Commission did come out with new maps as of Friday.

And so that has caused a lot to talk about, there's so much to talk about tonight, and we'd like to answer your questions.

You can email keystone@wvia.org or message us through social channels using the #keystonereports.

So let's welcome our guests who are here to share their expertise.

Joining us here in the studio is Charles McElwee, a writer for Real Clear Politics.

On Zoom is Kate Huangpu, a reporter with Spotlight PA who has been extensively covering the redistricting efforts.

Also joining us on Zoom is Bill O'Boyle from the Times Leader Newspaper.

Well, welcome everyone, thanks so much for participating in this conversation.

And Kate, I wanna start with you, can you briefly take us through, we're gonna concentrate on the state and legislative maps, take us this process briefly that got us to the point that we're at right now.

And I just wanna underscore (chuckles) that whatever you're seeing tonight is what's happening now, what we know right now, because it's a very fluid situation.

So Kate, how did we get to where we are?

- So basically redistricting happens every 10 years in concurrence with the decennial census.

There's a five member panel, mostly of the legislative leaders, as well as an independent chair that takes 90 days to draw preliminary redistricting maps.

This is to account for any sort of population shifts, movement towards various regions.

So in Pennsylvania, we've seen generally a movement from the western part of the state to the eastern part of the state.

And after this initial preliminary map is released, there's another 45 day period where the public can comment and sort of introduce critiques to the map.

Then the LRC has another 45 days to make amendments to the map and release a final version, and that is what just happened on Friday.

So now we're at a stage where the public has 30 days essentially to lodge a complaint with the state Supreme Court.

And that's sort of the final step of the process.

- Mm-hmm.

And again, underscoring that, right now, we're talking about the maps.

This is for the State House of Representatives and the state Senate.

There are 253 of these legislators, 203 in the house and 50 in the Senate.

Now Bill, you have been looking at this over the weekend and give us kind of a little overview of how is this changing the politics and the legislators that are representing the Northeastern Pennsylvania region.

- I think Luthern County, which is what we cover mainly took one of the more drastic hits there when the 14th senatorial district, currently represented by John Yudichak, an independent was taken completely out of Luzerne County and moved to Lehigh Valley and leaving Mr. Yudichak without a place to run, unless he wants to run against his good friend, Lisa Baker in the 20th Senate senatorial district, which I doubt he will do.

The other option would be for him to maybe move from (indistinct) where he lives now in the 20th district and move to another district and maybe run against somebody like Martin Flynn of Scranton who's now Scranton and Wilkes-Barre in his senatorial district.

That is one of the more intriguing aspects of this redistricting.

Yudichak himself said he is not at this time ready to do aside on what his political future will be.

As far as the state house seats, well, the senatorial seats, we now have four senators in the legislature representing pieces of Luzerne County.

- So, Bill again, what you're pointing out is that Luzerne County now is split into four different areas.

So different parts of Luzerne County, there's gonna be four senators that are responsible for different parts of Luzerne County right?

- Yeah.

Well, there was four before, but not to this great extent that it will be now.

And more importantly, one who's very familiar to Luzerne County, Yudichak will no longer be a representative of Luzerne County as it currently sits.

You know, Senator Argall will be coming in, Senator Gordner and Senator Flynn and Senator Baker will remain as representing parts of Luzerne County but in a much bigger piece.

So, and in the state house, most of those situations are pretty much the same, there's some slight differences, as of right now, we have one seat, the one 16th, which has no representation, there'll be a special election in April for that seat, which will be for a different constituted district and what will be in the primary.

- So let's just go back a little bit, why is that seat open Bill?

- That became open when Tarah Toohil was elected to the Luzerne County bench as a judge of the Court of Common Police.

- So what happens in that case?

So it goes to a special election or?

- Yes, a special election in April, the County Republican Party and the County Democratic Party will nominate somebody to run in that special election.

They were supposed to announce that at the end of last week, but that didn't happen because of the weather preventing them, the ability to get together and cast their ballots.

So we don't know who's gonna run for that race in the one 16th, in the special election.

- Mm-hmm.

- Okay, now we also have two legislators who recently announced that they are not going to seek reelection, Mike Carol, in the 118th and Gerald Mullery in the 119th.

They're both retiring after this year.

So those seats will be opened in the primary and there's been no, nobody come forward yet as to who might seek those seats.

The other seats will, with Aaron Kaufer and Eddie Day Pashinski and Karen Boback, they've changed slightly, but I don't think to any great extent that it'll affect their chances of reelection.

- Well, what are the big changes for Karen Boback.

We'll have a reaction to this from an official up in Wyoming County.

For many years, Karen Boback represented Wyoming County.

The whole county was in her district a long with parts of Luzerne County.

And now her district is redrawn.

So Wyoming County is now going to be represented by a different legislator.

And so a little bit earlier today, the WVIA reporter, Sara Scinto reached out to Rick Wilber, who is the chairman of the Wyoming County Commissioners.

And he had this to say about this change in representation for Wyoming County.

- [Rick] Well, (indistinct) obviously we don't have to wiggle with it because that's the way it's going to be, but we're not real happy about it.

We've had a number of projects that we've been working on that will not come to fruition by the end of this year when she's gone and when her replacement comes in.

Tina Pickett will be our new representative if she wins this year in the reelection, which I expect she will.

And I know her, she's a fine person, but we're gonna be changing horses in midstream here and just makes it difficult for a county commissioner when you got long range plans like we do.

I wish they'd change it so that we would stay in Cameron's jurisdiction.

We still do at Lisa Baker as our Senator, so that's good.

We haven't gotten any changes there.

But Karen and Lisa have been a great team working for all the counties that they represent, all of the people they do, and we wish it would continue for us as it has been.

- Rick Wilbur from Wyoming County.

And I invite you to ask a question of our panel, keystone@wvia.org, or contact us through social channels at #keystonereports.

Charles McElwee, you've been looking at these maps.

There has been a lot of discussion about, how these maps are going to affect the balance of power in Harrisburg.

What have you seen in studying the new maps that are just out?

Where does Pennsylvania stand?

Where does the GOP stand?

Their in control of both houses now, is that going to continue?

Is it going to change at all?

What have you seen?

- Well, the present legislative maps in terms of the state house, the new map definitely slightly favors the Democratic Party compared to the map drawn in 2011.

The Senate map favors the Republicans.

In terms of the overall map of the Commonwealth, both parties have to confront the evolving realignment that we're seeing across the state.

So for example, Republicans definitely have an advantage when you leave Metro Pittsburgh and Greater Philadelphia.

And we just see that in voter registration statistics in the sense of during the Obama years, Democrats, a 1 million voter registration advantage, that was narrow to about 900,000 when Trump was elected in 2016, it's down to 591,000 today.

So just for context, where we are here this evening in Luzerne County.

Democrats have 33,000 voter registration advantage in 2016, that's down to 8,700 right now.

A dramatic shift in terms of voter preferences, and really just an illustration of working class voters who are shifting against the Democratic Party.

It began, especially during the Obama years, but has certainly accelerated since then.

So when you look at a region like Northeastern, Pennsylvania, Republicans long term clearly have an advantage, but somewhere like South Central Pennsylvania, like Harrisburg's West Shore, that could be Pennsylvania's answer to Northern Virginia in the sense of an area that is increasingly trending Democrat, increasingly prosperous, the census shows that Lebanon and Cumberland Counties in South Central Pennsylvania are the fastest growing counties in the state.

And that's driven a large part by professionals who are locating there.

And those professionals are increasingly voting Democrat and therefore a region that was historically Republican long term, shifting blue, likewise and Northeastern Pennsylvania, or Western Pennsylvania, especially a county like Westmoreland solidly Republican.

- Mm-hmm, right, right.

That would be a big change for Lebanon County if that ever happens.

But you're talking long term, - Very long term.

- Yes.

- No, Lebanon stalled the Republican case.

- Right.

I just wanna follow up, as you said, in your estimation, the map of the house had a democratic, favored the Democrats, that correct?

Is that what you said?

- Right, right.

So.

- But, is it favoring them to the point where they can be the majority in the house or that the house would become more balanced?

Because now I think the Republicans have a 20 plus majority in the house.

- Right.

So it would just result in the map that has more competitive house seats, that's when certainly in a place like Greater Philadelphia, house seats that were historically Republican in the suburbs, more competitive for example for Democrats, the same could go for Dauphin County and South Central Pennsylvania, for example.

Dauphin was Republican until Obama was elected in '08.

Now it's Democrat because of places like Hershey, which was a Republican stronghold, even went for Trump in 2016, it went for Biden in 2020.

So that suburban realignment.

- Hmm.

- But then again, we talked about the 116 legislative district in Greater Hazleton, and historically that was a Greater Hazleton area school district.

In 1994 Tom Stish who was then state rep famously switched parties.

He was a Democrat, became Republican during that wave year for the Republican Party, and he was punished and then subsequently lost to Todd Eachus in 1996.

Fast forward to 2010, we had another wave year for the Republican party and Eachus was voted out, Tarah Toohil won.

And since that time the Republicans have had the majority in the state house.

So all signs show that that could still be the case of 2022, but the map certainly in the coming decade makes it more competitive for Democrats.

- In just a bit, we're concentrating on the state house Senate, but I'd like you to make a comment just really quickly, we'll cover the US Congress to this point.

But I wanna ask a question to Kate and it has to do with why we do this in the first place.

Okay, we found out that we lost population in Pennsylvania over the last 10 years.

So we are going to lose a US Congressman, we're going from 18 to 17, but that's not the case for the state legislature.

The number of people in the Commonwealth, really has no effect on the number of state legislators.

So why do we have to do this for the state legislature?

Why do the lines have to be drawn for the state?

Can't they just stay the same?

What is the point of doing it?

- In essence, it's because each district as mandated by the Pennsylvania Constitution has to have around an equal population.

There's about a 10% deviation that's allowable, but because of population shifts over the past 10 years, currently the maps as they stand have a greater deviation than that.

So districts are redrawn to reflect this new sort of population shift.

You know, as you mentioned, there's a shift towards Southeast Pennsylvania overall, there's a population decline in the more rural areas, in Western Pennsylvania.

So in order to ensure this idea of one person, one vote, or having equal power under the law districts are redrawn.

- I see.

So in a way, the state legislature of Pennsylvania is a microcosm of what happens nationally.

And so it's about migration here, right and there, and it makes the lines different.

And the different states have different numbers of representatives in the house, but there's still 435.

And now in our state, we're always guaranteed 253, but because of migration from one county to another county, it makes those lines, we have to redraw those lines to mirror those changes.

That's correct?

- Yeah, that's exactly it.

- Okay, good.

Bill, let's go back a little bit.

We have these open seats, Gerald Mullery and Mike Carroll.

Either case or both cases did the map, or this change in the maps have anything to do with their decisions that you've been able to ascertain?

- They said, no, in both cases, I think they felt they've been there long enough and they wanted to get out and move on to something else.

But one point I would like to make too is that, when you're looking at registrations in Luzerne County, it's always been a democratic stronghold.

That gap in registration has narrowed very dramatically over the last few years, since 2016, that's the Trump effect.

But what we have seen is that Luzerne County for the last few cycles is, despite its democratic edge votes Republican.

So not only are more people registering Republican, more and more Democrats are voting Republican.

And I think that speaks to the candidates and the philosophies of the parties.

And I think that's where the real work has to be done, especially within the democratic party to try and find out why they are losing so many elections in our county council election this past year, all five that were elected were Republican.

We have one Democrat left on the county council, Tim McGinley, who has this year and next year and his term, and he's done.

So that's very significant for Luzerne County.

So with all the redistricting and all that stuff, I think there also has to be some attention given to why voters seem to be more attracted to the Republican candidates, and their philosophies, and stances on issues than the democratic party.

- So Bill, you've been here for many years as I have and know about this shift over time.

I know you're a reporter, but I'll ask you not for an opinion, but maybe for an analysis as to why you think that this is happening.

Why has this happened?

And to me, I've seen this shift slowly over many decades.

Could you give us your idea of why this shift is taking place?

- Yeah, I think that the Republican party speaks to the working man and woman.

I think they speak to the values that they hold, that are held today by people in middle America.

You know, there's things like, you know, the gun rights, the right to life, the stance on protecting borders, the economy and jobs and the whole philosophy of America First and take care of the people here, all those things speak to middle America.

We saw it with Trump in '16, and that was a significant change in the way the country has voted it.

I think it's gonna be very hard for the Democrats to sustain the victories that they saw in 2020 with the presidency and some other seats in Congress.

I think this midterm election's gonna be really interesting to see where the chips fall.

And like I said, I think the Democratic Party to a certain extent has lost touch with middle America, and I'm not sure they're capable of trying to figure it out, but I think they better, or they're gonna face a real tough midterm election.

- So what you might be saying from a voter standpoint, a citizen standpoint is not so much that, I left the Democratic Party, is like the Democratic Party, you know, left me.

- I've heard that from so many people, including the new Republican County chairman P.J.

Pribula, who was a lifelong Democrat.

- Mm-hmm.

- And he turned Republican a few years ago.

- Mm-hmm.

- And the reason he told me that he did that, was not that he left the Democratic Party, but that the Democratic Party left him.

And I've heard that from many people.

- Mm-hmm.

- Who feel exactly the same way, whether they switched their registration or whether they switch the way they vote, they think they identify more with Republican Party in his philosophies.

- Mm-hmm.

- And that's where we are right now.

- Charles.

- I don't know.

- Yeah, I'll give this one to you first, but Kate and Bill, we're running out time, maybe we'll have a little bit of time to have you answer this.

One of the criticisms I've seen over the last few days, particularly with the new maps, it's a recurring criticism, is that these most recent maps splits Northeastern Pennsylvania, particularly the Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Hazleton area in such a way that it becomes disjointed, disconnected, and works against ongoing efforts in economic development to try to make the region seem as, marketed as one, you know, to look at it as one market.

So, could you understand that criticism?

- Sure.

So in the past decades, certainly the Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Hazleton corridor has worked more closely together in terms of economic development initiatives, especially on the transportation front.

And as it prepare for all of that warehousing logistics growth, which has occurred in the past 10 to 15 years.

In some ways we've talked about regionalization on this program.

Some of those regional coordination efforts are perhaps a little overstated, historically Hazleton based on where it is in Southern Luzerne County has always to some extent felt politically and culturally disenfranchised from the rest of the county, the rest of Luzerne, the courthouse and Wilbury, but the efforts have improved, especially under the 2011 drawn, the composition of Senator John Yudichak's district.

Going forward, yes, it never helps to divide a region, especially when it comes to economic development efforts that serve working class regions.

But we're seeing this in Luzerne County, in Lackawanna, but also in Central Pennsylvania, for example, Kurt Master, a state representative who previously represented Montour County, based on the new map, he no longer represents Montour, his district has shifted east into parts of Schuylkill County So you have these state representatives that cultivated years of relationships with their constituents.

- Mm-hmm.

- And with that new map, it goes away.

- Right.

Kate, so we're just about out of time, where are we now?

And what can we expect in the next week or two?

- Now we're in the process of essentially waiting for someone to lodge a complaint in the State Supreme Court, given how far reaching this issue is, it's pretty certain that it will happen inevitably.

It happened to pass two redistricting cycles.

There's also another case in the Commonwealth Court that is actually asking the court to postpone the election dates, just to make sure that there's time for the primary, but we're sort of in a wait and see period.

- Mm-hmm.

So what can we expect?

I mean, will we know something different by this time next week?

- Yeah, I can't really guarantee that too.

I'm not gonna lie.

(laughing) I think that right now, again, it's a situation where we see the news as it drops on the PA courts website.

- Right.

(chuckles) - But we're all waiting eagerly.

- All right.

Well, you could follow Kate on spotlightpa.org.

They always have lots of great information there.

So we're just about out of time.

You could see it's a very fluid situation.

So thank you Charles, thank you Kate, thank you the Bill, all panelists for participating a thank you for joining us.

Now for more information, please visit wvia.org/keystonereports.

And remember you can rewatch this episode on Demand anytime or on online or in the WVIA app.

But remember, if you watch on a later date, the situation may have changed as Yogi Berra said, it ain't over till it's over.

For Keystone Edition, I'm Larry Vojtko.

Thank you so much for watching.