Tag: Mike Turzai

Democrats want to take away redistricting authority from state legislators. Recently a group of protesters demonstrated at Pennsylvania House Speaker Mike Turzai’s home demanding that new districts be drawn by a nonpartisan group instead of state legislators (Aug. 13, “Turzai Hits Back at Protesters: Pa. House Speaker Says They Don’t Know Facts”). So how can these protesters claim to want to take politics out of redistricting when these protesters themselves are engaging in aggressive political activity? If politics is so bad, why are they participating in it? Any attempt to put redistricting into the hands of an unelected commission contradicts their stated goal of removing politics from redistricting because redistricting commissioners will be chosen on the basis of their political views. There’s no good reason to remove politics from redistricting. Whenever someone says they want to take politics out of something, usually that something becomes more politicized as a result. The movement to remove redistricting from the Legislature is a thinly disguised trick by the political left to bully us to give up our freedom to allow more progressive Democrats in office against the will of the voting majority. The system we have now works just fine because those making the decisions are accountable to the voters. Plum The writer is vice chairman of the Republican Committee of Allegheny County.