Draw the Lines: A PA Redistricting Initiative

GWP Members Only Program
When: 
Thursday, June 29, 2017
12:30pm to 2:00pm EDT
Where: 
The Buhl Foundation
650 Smithfield Street
23rd Floor
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Republicans, Democrats, and Independents are coming to agreement that gerrymandering is one of the primary causes of the gridlock and dysfunction that has taken over both Harrisburg and Washington. Further, Millennials are coming of age in an era in which it seems like citizens don't have a powerful voice, and citizen engagement and knowledge are declining – but technology offers the potential for new kinds of democratic participation. 

Join GWP to learn about Draw the Lines-PA (DTL), a nonpartisan public mapping competition from the Committee of Seventy  in Philadelphia.  DTL is designed to inform and engage Pennsylvania's students and voters about a process that deeply impacts our democracy: how we draw Pennsylvania's electoral maps every ten years.

Before the next round of redistricting in 2021, through a free and easy-to-use software platform, Draw the Lines will give thousands of students and voters in western PA and across the Commonwealth the same digital mapping tools that politicians use. The first competition, drawing PA's Congressional map, will launch in the Spring of 2018. Every spring and fall until the real redistricting process in 2021, Draw the Lines will reintroduce a new batch of citizen mapmakers to redistricting. Through a lengthy and growing network of civic and educational partnerships and regional steering committees, 10,000 Pennsylvanians will complete maps and share them with their elected officials, encouraging a fairer, more transparent mapping process. 

Draw the Lines was inspired by Amanda Holt, a piano teacher in Allentown who, in 2011, believed she could create better maps than the politicians did. And she did just that; the PA Supreme Court ruled that her maps were superior to the originally created state legislative maps, sending the pols back to the drawing board to draw better lines. If one citizen can make a difference, what could 10,000 Amanda Holts accomplish? 

Presenters:

David Thornburgh, President and CEO, Committee of Seventy
Chris Satullo, Civic Engagement Consultant, Committee of Seventy
Justin Villere, Civic Engagement Consultant, Committee of Seventy