Very simple.
Change the Pennsylvania Supreme Court so its members are majority Democrat.
Ultimately, the Court controls redistricting. In a very likely tiebreaker situation, it appoints the fifth member of the Redistricting Commission which will already have two Democrats and two Republicans. When the new district maps are appealed through the courts, the Supreme Court makes the final decision as to whether those districts are acceptable or not.
As a result, the 2015 is the most important non-Presidential election in Pennsylvania so far in this decade.
This year, for the first time in over 200 years, three seats on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court are up for election. It is essential that they be filled by Democrats.
How so? (See below the orange squiggle)
In the period (2003 to 2012) when the redistricting from the 2000 census was in effect, the Pennsylvania Congressional Delegation had between 7 and 12 members out of a total delegation of 19. Now there are 5 members out of a total of 18 (28%). This happened in a state in which the total vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate and the Democratic Congressional candidates showed a Democratic majority.
Why did this happen?
Redistricting!
In 2011, between a Republican Governor, a Republican legislature and a Republican dominated Supreme Court, the redistricting commission changed the boundaries of the congressional districts so that the number of Democrats in the Pennsylvania Congressional delegation was reduced to 5. As Michael Barone and Chuck McCutcheon, writing for The Almanac of American Politics describe it:
“The plan ruthlessly sewed the state, particular the Philadelphia suburbs, into a crazy quilt. Montgomery County, about the population of one district, was split five ways to boost the suburban Republican trio of Jim Gerlach, Mike Fitzpatrick, and Pat Meehan, who were happy to feed their trickiest inner suburbs to Philadelphia’s Democrats. Mapmakers even awkwardly appended a portion of Amish Country to Meehan’s 7th District. In the northeast, Republicans stuffed Blue Dog [Tim] Holden’s 17th District with the liberal labor bastions of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, and Easton to relieve pressure on freshman Republican Lou Barletta in the 11th District and Charlie Dent in the Lehigh Valley’s 15th.
“In the west, Republicans split the city of Erie to shore up freshman Mike Kelly and carefully merged [Jason] Altmire and [Mark] Critz in such a way that neither Democrat could plausibly run elsewhere but either would still be vulnerable in a general election. Sure enough, Critz defeated Altmire in a bitter primary and Republican Keith Rothfus defeated Critz in November. Back east, Holden lost his primary to a more liberal Democrat, and in November, Republicans held onto their other 12 seats without much of a fight. Pennsylvania is House Democrats’ redistricting dilemma in a nutshell. Statewide, Democrats won about 83,000 more votes in House races than Republicans, but Republicans won 13 of 18 districts and look more secure in their seats than they did at the outset of the last decade.”
If there is a Democratic majority on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2021, then the Congressional and Pennsylvania legislative districts could well be redrawn so as to be fairer to Democrats.
Consequently, there must be a huge effort to get out the Democratic voters in this election cycle so they can vote for the Democratic candidates for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Otherwise, the Pennsylvania Democratic Party is doomed to many more years of wandering in the political wilderness of minority representation in the US and Pennsylvania legislatures.
The effort to get out the Democratic voters must be reframed so the voters will understand the tremendous importance of their vote. The standard “come vote because it is your civic duty” line is not adequate. Voting in this election must be reframed so voters realize that the long-term future of our country and our state are at stake in this election. Otherwise, we are at the mercy of the Republican Party which now is dominated by extreme right-wing legislators.