Con la fecha límite acercándose rápidamente para aprobar los nuevos mapas de votación en Pensilvania, la comisión a cargo de crear mapas de la Cámara y el Senado está organizando audiencias públicas esta semana para recibir comentarios de los residentes.
La Comisión de Redistribución Legislativa albergará ocho horas de audiencias para los días jueves y viernes en Harrisburg.
Carol Kuniholm de Fair Districts PA dice que crear nuevos mapas una vez cada diez años basándose en el cambio de población nunca es una tarea fácil. Ella dice que en el mapa propuesto por el Senado, existe preocupación por un patrón de grandes desviaciones de la población ideal del distrito que necesita abordarse.
"Cuando una región esta muy por debajo de la población, y una región esta muy por encima, el territorio que esta por debajo de la población en realidad esta obteniendo mas representación," subraya Kuniholm. "Y la zona que esta por encima termina perdiendo representación. Esto debería reflejar el hecho de que los municipios no son todos del mismo tamaño."
Cuatro audiencias están programadas para el 14 y 15 de enero en Harrisburg. Las audiencias se transmitirán por Zoom para que los residentes de Pensilvania se unan virtualmente. El Departamento de Estado ha solicitado que los mapas de la Cámara, el Senado y el Congreso sean aprobados antes del 24 de enero para cumplir con los plazos para las elecciones primarias de mayo de 2022.
Kuniholm dice que los comentarios que la comisión recibe del público son clave para ayudar al organismo de cinco miembros a realizar los cambios necesarios en los mapas. Ella dice que es necesario dar ejemplos concretos de las necesidades de su comunidad y el por qué una buena representación es importante.
"El distrito escolar que ha tenido muy pocos fondos y esta realmente luchando por recuperarse, ese tipo de testimonio es realmente útil," asegura Kuniholm. "Si las personas pueden presentar un caso muy especifico del por que su comunidad necesita atención, es un buen comentario que ofrecer."
La comisión está aceptando comentarios públicos sobre los mapas de la Cámara y el Senado hasta el 18 de enero. Los residentes de Pensilvania también pueden proporcionar testimonios escritos en el sitio web de la comisión.
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A new report found Texas likely undercounted the number of people who actually live in the state when gathering information for the 2020 census.
The census guides where federal money -- some $1.5 trillion -- is spent based on population. Texas was one of six states showing an undercount, while eight states showed an overcount.
Thomas Wolf, deputy director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, said the new data will not change the population numbers used for Congressional reapportionment or redistricting, but can have a direct effect on people's well-being.
"If your state goes undercounted, there's a risk that you'll end up with less funding than you should for things like education, health care, food assistance, highways," Wolf outlined. "Basically, the whole infrastructure of your community and state."
Before the census, advocates warned of a significant undercount in the Latino population after the Trump administration tried to add a question about citizenship to the census. Although the question eventually was excluded, experts say it could have triggered lower response rates from Latinos.
California, the most populous U.S. state, did not have a significant population undercount in the census, but Wolf noted it also spent $187 million in supplemental census outreach, while Texas declined to spend any money on outreach.
"The decision itself, regardless of the motivation, is sort of penny wise/pound-foolish," Wolf remarked. "Yes, you save money from not investing in census outreach, but what you get in return is an undercount that then deprives you of millions of federal dollars."
According to the Urban Institute, if the residents of Texas had been counted accurately in 2020, the state would have received at least $247 million more in 2021 federal Medicaid reimbursements. Other states among the top six likely undercounting their population include Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Mississippi and Tennessee.
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A new report found the 2020 census significantly undercounted the Latino population nationwide, by almost 5%, more than three times the undercount from the 2010 census.
By establishing population data, the census guides where federal dollars are spent.
Thomas Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said the undercount could mean less money for dozens of programs benefiting children and young adults in Nevada, including Medicaid and food assistance.
"The federal funding implicates things like education, child care services, transportation, parks and health care," Saenz outlined. "There isn't really a federal program or even state and local decision-making that is not going to be affected by an undercount in the census."
An analysis from the Urban Institute last winter projected an undercount of more than 20,000 people of all races statewide, including a slight overcount of white residents and a net undercount of 2.19% for Hispanics living in Nevada.
Before the census, advocates warned of a significant undercount in the Latino population after the Trump administration tried to add a question about citizenship to the census.
Saenz believes the move was designed to trigger lower response rates, specifically from the Latino community.
"And even though many of those efforts were stopped in court, the public attention to them clearly had an impact," Saenz observed. "That means that the Latino community will suffer as a result of that undercount over the course of the next decade."
The pandemic made it much harder to obtain an accurate count, because so many people had to move after losing their jobs. Children, particularly those from low-income families who tend to be renters, have traditionally been the hardest for census-takers to count.
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Wisconsin is pushing ahead with a Republican-drawn legislative redistricting plan, after a ruling Friday by the state Supreme Court held the GOP maps were the most race-neutral option.
The state high court previously chose Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' legislative maps, but the decision was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, which held the state court did not provide enough justification a new Black-majority assembly district called for in Evers' plan was necessary.
Mel Barnes, staff attorney for the legal firm Law Forward, argued in a discussion hosted by the Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition Monday the Republican maps violate the Voting Rights Act, opening them up to further potential litigation.
"The purpose of legislation like this, that grew out of the civil rights movement and was a triumph that people around this country organized for and pushed for, was to make sure that we weren't drawing districts in a way that diluted these votes," Barnes asserted.
Under the GOP plan, Milwaukee County will now have five Assembly districts with a majority of Black voters, down from the current six and Evers' planned seven. The U.S. Supreme Court left in place the governor's congressional redistricting plan. Evers issued a statement Friday, writing the ruling was outrageous and "an unconscionable miscarriage of justice."
Republicans would have kept their majorities in the Senate and Assembly under Evers' maps, although to a lesser degree than in the new GOP-drawn maps, which put them a few assembly seats shy of a veto-proof legislative majority.
Sachin Chheda, director of the Fair Elections Project, pointed out Evers' maps were already based on lines drawn by Republicans in 2011, as a previous state Supreme Court ruling held new voting maps should be based as much as possible on the current ones.
"So that meant that every option was going to be a gerrymandered map," Chheda contended. "It was just how gerrymandered was it going to be?"
Voting-rights advocates argue Wisconsin's 2011 maps were among the most gerrymandered in the nation. The plan was also challenged to the U.S. Supreme Court, which tossed out the case in 2019 in 2019, arguing it did not have the authority to consider partisan gerrymandering claims. Barring future legal challenges, the new maps will be in place until 2031.
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