The LNP Editorial Board
THE ISSUE
Pennsylvania could lose a seat in Congress by the beginning of the next decade. National population shifts will take representative slots to faster-growing states such as Texas and Florida. After the census numbers are published every 10 years, legislators meet in Harrisburg to redraw political districts, including those for Congress. The number of congressional seats in Pennsylvania peaked at 36 in the 1920s and has since declined to 18.
It’s called gerrymandering. We could fill this space a hundred times over explaining how it’s done. But, in a nutshell, politicians get together 
and, much like a kids’ party magician creating balloon animals, they bend, fold, twist and finagle legislative districts that sometimes barely resemble their original form.
Democrats or Republicans, whichever party happens to be in power, reshape political boundaries to give their party a numeric advantage so they can win elections with little or no opposition. It’s a purely political exercise, and it serves no one.
Pennsylvania is notorious for this. The 7th Congressional District looks like a Rorschach test. It was redrawn by Republicans in Harrisburg to include seven heavily Republican municipalities in eastern Lancaster County that were previously in the 16th District. Their transfer would counter the more Democratic portions of the 7th District, helping to guarantee victory for the GOP. The strategy has worked swimmingly, as Republican Rep. Pat Meehan continues to win easily.
In 2012, Aryanna Strader, the Democratic challenger to Republican U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts, was gerrymandered out of the 16th District in which she was running. She lived only three-quarters of a mile from Pitts’ home in southern Chester County. Even though she could no longer vote for herself because she now lived in the 7th District, Strader decided to stay in the race because you don’t have to live in a congressional district to run for the seat. She lost.
Who will lose seats in 2021 will depend on which party is in control.
In 2011, when Pennsylvania lost a seat, the Republican-controlled state House and Senate got out their giant Etch-a-Sketch and redrew the lines so two Democratic congressmen in the west found themselves in the same district. The Republicans picked up one seat while the Democrats lost two.
Lest anyone think this isn’t a two-party fiasco, if the Democrats get their chance, they will likely look to the east and the Philadelphia suburbs to create another Democratic district and gain a seat.
Congressional districts are supposed to be an accurate representation of the people who live within their boundaries. If you removed politicians from the process and based congressional districts purely on census data, Pennsylvania’s legislative map, along with those of many other states, would look very different.
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