Unbeknownst to many Pennsylvanians, voting districts in the Commmonwealth are in the middle of a switcheroo transition period. The redistricting plan that had been in the making for several years was finally approved by the PA Supreme Court on May 8, 2013. Registered voters may have begun receiving mailings from unfamiliar state Senators and Representatives as early as mid to late 2013. So for example, when I voted in 2012, Spring City Borough was part of the 19th Senate District, represented by Senator Andy Dinniman and part of the 26th House District, represented by Representative Tim Hennessey. But in the Fall of 2013, I started receiving newsletters from Senator John Rafferty of the 44th District and Representative Becky Corbin of the 155th so I had erroneously assumed that the new district assignments were already in effect. It also didn't help that Chief Justice Castille's Opinion was vague as to when the plan would go into effect, stating "We therefore conclude that the LRC has utilized the population data of the 2010 census to create a redistricting map that complies with the Pennsylvania Constitution, which shall hereby have the force of law, beginning with the 2014 election cycle."
But this past Thursday, I visited the PA General Assembly website to skim over recent legislative happenings and decided to use the "Find Your Legislator" tool to see if it had been updated to show Spring City Borough being represented by Senator Rafferty and Rep. Corbin. I was perplexed when I found that the website still showed the "old" district assignments. I wrote an e-mail to the "new" legislators representing Spring City asking about when the "Find Your Legislator" tool would be updated. To my surprise, instead of an e-mail from an assistant/aide, Rep. Corbin was kind enough to call me back a few hours later to answer my question.
Based upon the telephone conversation with Rep. Corbin, this is my understanding of what's going on:
- the "new" districts will be officially effective on December 1, 2014
- in the interim, if you need to contact your Senator or Representative, direct inquiries to your "current" legislators
- if you do contact the legislators of your "future" districts, there is an informal understanding that they will try to address the concerns of constituents in both the "current" and "future" districts
Pennsylvania Redistricting/Reapportionment Links
http://www.pacourts.us/...
http://www.redistricting.state.pa.us/