Redistricting Map is Embarrassing

          Pennsylvania’s preliminary redistricting map has been blasted by newspapers and good government groups across the state and it has to be embarrassing to my Republican colleagues who pushed it through on a partisan vote.
            I don’t see how you make the case in federal court or even the court of public opinion that this is a serious attempt to make sure constituents get the best representation. It’s clearly an overreach of power and when voters get a chance to look at it, it’s going to backfire.
            The Republican-engineered preliminary plan approved last week on a party-line vote takes my far-flung 35th  district and stretches it another 50 miles, from the Maryland line to within 80 miles of the New York border – across two thirds of the state.
            If anyone would have told me they could create a Senate district that would include the Maryland border and I-80, I wouldn’t have believed it. It would take three hours to drive from end to end.
            By adding Bedford County to the 35th District, which now stretches to Renovo in Clinton County, Republican strategists created a district more than 160 miles long and, in several places in Clearfield County, less than eight miles wide.
            I think that I could do well representing the people of Bedford County.  That’s not the problem. I’ve been an eager advocate for rural Pennsylvania whether it’s preserving the environment or trying to get better access to high-speed Internet.  But a district that stretches across two-thirds of the state is ridiculous.
            Senate Democrats are going to fight implementation of the plan and suggested that the preliminary approval given by the Legislative Reapportionment Commission’s chairman was an effort to get the process moving rather than an endorsement.

                       Texting Ban Goes into Effect March 8    
           
           Now that Gov. Corbett has signed the bill, a ban on texting while driving in Pennsylvania will go into effect on March 8, 2012.  That will give time for drivers and local police departments to adapt to the new law and it will, hopefully, let the message sink in that this dangerous and distracting behavior won’t be tolerated on the roads.