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Panel redrawing district lines can't come up with a chairman

HARRISBURG - Members of the panel charged with redrawing Pennsylvania's 253 legislative districts have begun in classic fashion the once-a-decade process.

HARRISBURG - Members of the panel charged with redrawing Pennsylvania's 253 legislative districts have begun in classic fashion the once-a-decade process.

Their first task: selecting a chairman - which proved again, as it has in past years, to be a tough one.

After considering 15 candidates, the seated commission members - composed of the majority and minority leaders of the state House and Senate - failed to reach agreement on the panel's fifth member, who would serve as chairman. The deadline was 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.

That fifth member would cast the deciding vote should the partisan panel be divided over the map's boundaries - which, if the past is any guide, it probably will be.

After the deadline, the filling of that pivotal seat would fall to a majority of the state Supreme Court, as it has for the last two rounds of census-based redistricting, in 1991 and 2001. The high court would have until May 4 to name a chairman.

The four commission members are Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware), Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa (D., Allegheny), House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R., Allegheny), and House Minority Leader Frank Dermody (D., Allegheny).

The panel must carve Pennsylvania, with its current population of about 12.7 million, into 203 state House districts, each with about 62,000 residents, and 50 state Senate districts, each with about 254,000 people.

The 2010 census showed Pennsylvania's population shifting eastward, raising the likelihood that some counties in the northeast and southeast, particularly Chester County - the fourth-fastest-growing county in the state - will gain seats as counties in the southwest lose ground.

In a quirk of demographics involving Pennsylvania's prison population, the fastest-growing county was remote Forest County in the north-central part of the state, which experienced a 64 percent growth in the last decade - thanks to the opening of a prison. Because the actual population increase (1,900 people) is small compared with other areas, it will not mean the county will get an extra legislative seat.

But Philadelphia - which reversed nearly a half-century of decline with a slight upturn in population in the last 10 years - will likely neither gain nor lose a seat. In 1991, it ceded two seats to fast-growing northeastern counties.

A similar process is now under way in New Jersey. A battle for control of the state House in Trenton lies ahead after Sunday's decision by that state's Apportionment Commission to adopt new boundaries for the state's 40 legislative districts.

That decision underlined the political importance of the tiebreaker on such panels: The New Jersey commission member who cast that vote said he believed the map gave Republicans a chance at winning control of a chamber long ruled by Democrats.

In Pennsylvania, the new map is not likely to change the dynamics in a legislature where Republicans already have a substantial margin in both chambers. But as in the past, there could be skirmishes among legislative leaders to protect certain seats and send some members home, experts say.

"Both sides will try to protect incumbents and get rid of people they don't like," said G. Terry Madonna, a political science professor and pollster at Franklin and Marshall College. "But with Republicans holding the largest majority in the House since the 1950s, the change is not likely to determine control of the House."

The commission's final decision on the new map - which usually comes after a period of public comment in the fall - is invariably the subject of court challenges.

The next round of redistricting - the drawing of congressional district boundaries - comes later in the year. That map will be configured by Republican legislative staff and given final approval by the General Assembly, which, as in 2001, is under Republican control.

The chairmanship of the state Legislative Reapportionment Commission is open to any Pennsylvania citizen who is not employed by a federal, state, or local government agency. Since its creation in 1968, the position has been held by two professors, a lawyer, and a retired judge.