Karen Heller: Ensuring Pa. doesn't count

Many is the morning that Pennsylvanians awake and say, "If only we could be more like Nebraska."

Friends, now's our chance!

Gov. Corbett, Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, and other top Harrisburg Republicans want us to follow the lead of Nebraska and Maine, the only states in our land that elect presidents by congressional district rather than the winner-take-all approach we and 47 other states favor.

Which to their minds is just greedy, greedy, greedy.

Introducing legislation that would change the way we elect presidents months shy of the 2012 election has absolutely nothing - nothing! - to do with Democrats having won the state in the last five elections, or the GOP having total domination over Harrisburg. The party also controls congressional redistricting, empowered to move those squishy borders just so, like a decorator rearranging furniture in the living room that is Pennsylvania, until - voilà! - everything is coming up roses. By roses, they mean Republican red.

In 2008, Barack Obama won the commonwealth by more than 10 percentage points, a victory by any measure - well, not under this proposed measure - collecting all 21 of the state's electoral votes, a number that will fall by one in 2012 due to the census. Under the GOP-are-voters-too plan, Obama would have garnered 11 and Sarah Palin's running mate 10.

Our state has 1.1 million more Democrats than Republicans, yet the congressional delegation consists of 12 R's and seven D's. How did this happen? Magic! Instead of gerrymandering, we have GOPermandering.

"There are huge portions of Pennsylvania that voted for the other candidate in many of the elections, and their vote really didn't count," Corbett said. Corbett views the state as consisting of five or six political regions that have "not been represented because of the huge turnout in Philadelphia."

Yes, it's such a bummer when Americans exercise their right to vote. All over the country people complain about voter apathy. Here in Pennsylvania, our governor gets exercised when people actually cast their ballots.

Or, precisely, when Philadelphians do. Our county is one of four Corbett lost last year. If you doubt the governor's great love for this city, where he tends to make stealth appearances behind closed doors before the party faithful, this move might be labeled Exhibit Z.

"Everyone agrees Pennsylvania is one of the more diverse states in the union," Pileggi said, "and that diversity is not reflected in the current winner-takes-all system."

And, by "diverse," he means nothing of the sort.

The state is diverse in the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia metropolitan areas, where almost half the state's population and many Democrats dwell. The rest of the commonwealth is only diverse in that some residents are Elks while others are Lions, some like cheese while others are lactose-intolerant.

Nebraska is a lovely place, filled with corn and nice people and few cities, like the "diverse" Pennsylvania that Pileggi has in mind and not Delaware County, which he actually represents.

Maine is wonderful, rich in beauty and lobster, but people? Not so much. The population totals of Nebraska and Maine are negligible - more people live in Philadelphia than Maine - and they matter not a whit during presidential elections with their paltry electoral votes, nine in total.

But Pennsylvania is hugely important in presidential elections, a swing state courted hard by candidates, their millions of dollars and their promises to help should we elect them. In the 2008 general election, Obama and the guy running with Palin spent more than $71 million in Pennsylvania on media advertising alone. If we split our electoral votes like so many poker chips, we can kiss that money and attention goodbye. We'll become another flyover state.

The plan will enrage Democrats, and may motivate turnout. It's also potentially stupid. Obama isn't guaranteed winning Pennsylvania. Republicans have the potential to deliver all 20 votes to their candidate, not half.

Ed Rendell, former Democratic National Committee chair, labeled the proposal a "disaster," noting that "Pennsylvania is one of three states that basically decides the election." Voting by congressional district isn't bad, he argued, if every state adopts the approach. "We'd love to get eight or nine electoral votes out of Texas, which we haven't won since LBJ."

Please note that while summer's over for most of us, the country's most bloated legislature, $300 million and 3,000 employees fat, is only now returning after almost three months' break. The Senate meets Monday, while the House won't convene until next Monday. Time will tell what our whimsical elected officials dream of next.