Karen Heller: Less clout, not more, with redistricting

Montgomery is Pennsylvania's second-richest and third-most-populous county. The municipality holds another distinction: It has more legislative representatives than any other in the state. Indeed, per capita it has more elected officials than most counties in the nation.

Montgomery County has almost 800,000 residents. With each state congressional district comprising nearly 706,000, logically Montgomery should have two members in the U.S. House of Representatives.

But logic has nothing do with the decennial party game known as redistricting now in play, and by party, we mean Republicans sticking it to Democrats once again. (Rest assured, this is pure partisan politics. If Democrats were in charge, they would be doing the same thing to Republicans.)

Instead, Montgomery is represented by six U.S. House members, yet only one - Allyson Schwartz - resides in the county. The county's legislative map is so gerrymandered, it looks as if it was attacked by paramecia. Philadelphia, with almost twice the population, has a mere four representatives.

Montgomery County also has a high number of state senators - seven, only four of whom are residents. The county also has 17 members in the General Assembly.

You might think there is power in numbers. But you would be wrong.

Gerrymandering "was done to limit Democratic leadership. The Republicans were hell-bent on exercising partisan leadership; the plan undermined the community and their constituency," says State Rep. Josh Shapiro, who is running to become the first Democratic County Commissioner chairman in 13 decades.

Because five congressmen's districts are based largely in other counties, they don't visit Montco often, argues Democratic commissioner and former Congressman Joe Hoeffel. "Allyson represents more of the county than anyone else, but not the county seat of Norristown, which has lots of federal needs."

Montco's electoral rolls are almost equally divided - 45 percent Democratic, 40 percent Republican, and 15 percent independent. Yet through redistricting, the county is represented by four Republicans.

As in 2001, the GOP controls all of Harrisburg and gets to exercise creative cartography in redrawing district maps. Pennsylvania will lose another House member next year, because of the most recent census, and will shrink from 19 to 18.