Last night, a helpful post on redistricting went up on DailyKos. askew provides historical context, an overview of the Democratic playing field, and a call to action, all in one little paragraph:

In 2001-2... Because the Republicans controlled so many state houses during the restricting process, they were able to create gerrymandered districts that resulted in historic gains for the Republicans in the 2002 midterms. The Democratic Party is determined to not let that happen again. The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) (help elect state Reps/Sens), The National Democratic Redistricting Trust (legal team to fight redistricting) and Foundation for the Future (a 527 funded primarily by unions to provide data to the Democratic Party on how to draw maps to favor Democrats). However, they will need our help to GOTV and raise money for the 2010 midterms.

This morning, Alex Burns’ Morning Score gave us a nice little plug:

COMING SOON – THE DLCC’S MAP: The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, charged with waging state House and Senate campaigns this fall ahead of the next round of redistricting, is preparing to release a memo to Democratic stakeholders outlining the most urgent targets for the party this fall. “Of the legislatures with the power to draw congressional maps, 23 chambers in 17 states are within five seats of changing hands. These 17 states will draw 198 Congressional Districts,” DLCC executive director Michael Sargeant writes. “The bottom line: The results of the 2010 state legislative elections will define how key reforms and policies are decided for the next decade.” The DLCC’s top defensive targets: the Alabama Senate, Colorado Senate, Indiana House, Nevada Senate, New Hampshire Senate, New York Senate, Ohio House, Pennsylvania House and both chambers in Wisconsin. And its picks for offense: the Michigan Senate, Kentucky Senate, Tennessee House and Texas House.

Tune into this space next Monday for the memo to which he refers.

With questions beginning to fly concerning specific states, the DLCC is pleased to present, via RedistrictingFacts.com, a state-by-state breakdown of how redistricting actually works in each.

For example, did you know that an Independent Redistricting Commission administers the redistricting of both state legislative and congressional districts in Arizona? Check out the website to learn how the Commission members are appointed!

Were you aware that Governors have no veto authority over the maps drawn by the state legislatures in Connecticut and North Carolina?

Have you heard about the various states in which state Supreme Courts have some authority over the redistricting process?

Learn about all these things and more at http://redistrictingfacts.com/redistricting-by-state/!

This week, Congress.org responded to a reader’s question regarding redistricting.

The “nonpartisan news and information Web site” addressed the following inquiry:

"When a state's seats are cut after the census, how do they decide which representative is out of a job?"

Congress.org’s Frances Symes responds (emphases added):

After the census, and after the reapportionment has taken place, deciding how many House seats each state will have, the states step in to draw the district lines.

Because the Supreme Court in the 1960s interpreted the Constitution to require that each U.S. House district have equal numbers of people, any state with more than one district is likely to be required to adjust its district lines after each census to limit the variation in population between congressional districts.

Redistricting plans are drawn up and passed by the state legislatures and approved by the governors. In this way, the party that controls the state legislature essentially controls the redistricting.
…
While many political experts disagree about the importance of redistricting to the outcome of House elections, it is clear that it can be crucial in determining the make up of a state's delegation in the House, and thus the make up of Congress itself.

Certain areas within each state show a long-term preference for one party over the other.

Because these voting habits are well known to political experts in each state it is possible to create a district that is almost certain to favor candidates of one party of another. There are many ways to adjust districts to make them more or less friendly to members of a certain party.

In case you’re wondering about Republicans’ version of “friendly to members of a certain party,” allow me to refer you to the infamous 2003 Texas “DeLay-mander.” Gaining and maintaining majorities in state legislative chambers gives Democrats a seat at the redistricting table, so to speak. This will help prevent the GOP from gerrymandering itself into artificial majorities on both the state and federal levels for the next decade.

Symes goes on to posit the query,

So, what happens to an incumbent whose district disappears?

He or she has to run in a new district (which may or may not include part of his or her old district), possibly against another incumbent.

As redistricting nears, this issue is gaining some urgency. Some states, such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan, are predicted to lose congressional seats to other, more rapidly-growing states, such as Texas and Georgia. Once the congressional district boundaries are redrawn in the states losing seats in 2011, not all of those members of Congress will have a district to represent or a seat to run for in 2012.

With so much of the national pundit focus on the 2010 congressional elections, few are pausing to consider that some of these districts currently of so much concern to the makeup of the 112th Congress soon will simply cease to exist.

With everything else on the ballot this past Tuesday (several high-profile congressional and gubernatorial primaries, as well as the PA-12 special election), the Pennsylvania State House primaries went somewhat under the radar. But as the Pottstown Mercury explains, the results in some key races have put Democrats in a significantly better position to hold the chamber this November:

Lehigh County Republican Rep. Karen Beyer lost to a 23-year-old upstart who attacked her for supporting budget deals negotiated by Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell and for collecting taxpayer-funded perks.

Rep. Mike Gerber, D-Montgomery, his caucus' leading campaign strategist, said he was encouraged by the results in Beyer's race, as well as the Republican primary for the Williamsport-area district currently held by freshman Rep. Rick Mirabito, D-Lycoming.

In the Williamsport race, the Republican who Mirabito beat two years ago defeated a more moderate candidate who last held the seat.

Gerber said he also was pleased with the quality of his party's winners in multi-candidate races to fill vacancies. Those races will largely determine which party claims the majority come January. Republicans are working to regain majority control of the House, currently held 104-to-99 by the Democrats (...)

As a rule, the DLCC generally does not get directly involved in primary elections. However, we share Rep. Gerber’s enthusiasm for the Democratic winners in open-seat contests (there are 19 open seats in the State House this year), and we agree that Democrats are more likely now to hold the House than we were two days ago.

Rep. Gerber also serves as the Treasurer of the DLCC's Board of Directors.

Holding the Pennsylvania House is one of the top Democratic priorities this year because of Redistricting. Republicans dominated the state’s redistricting process in 2000 and drew one of the ugliest Republican gerrymanders in the country. The Republican-drawn congressional maps forced six incumbent Democrats to run against each other and turned a one-seat Republican advantage in Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation into a five-seat advantage.

Democrats fought back in 2006 and 2008, helped by demographic changes and a poisonous national climate for Republicans, but right now the Democratic State House is the key to preventing Republicans from wiping out those gains all over again.

Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Daryl Metcalf is already on record saying he doesn’t care about victims of domestic violence (or, to be more precise, that he hates gays more than he cares about domestic violence). Now it turns out Metcalf also hates the environment more than he loves America.

What else would explain Metcalf’s reply to retired Army Captain Jonathan Powers, who fought bravely in Iraq for more than a year, when Powers and Operation FREE (on the web: operationfree.net) invited Metcalf to meet with veterans seeking to raise awareness of how global climate change would threaten U.S. National Security?

I believe that any veteran lending their name, to promote the leftist propaganda of global warming and climate change, in an effort to control more of the wealth created in our economy, through cap and tax type policies, all in the name of national security, is a traitor to the oath he or she took defend the Constitution of our great nation!

Remember Benedict Arnold before giving credibility to a veteran who uses their service as a means to promote a leftist agenda.

Drill Baby Drill!!!

For Liberty,
Daryl Metcalfe
State Representative
Veteran U.S. Army

This time, at least Metcalf is picking on someone his own size –- as opposed to last month’s crusade against victims of domestic violence.

But something more needs to be said about this. The event Metcalf was invited to, while it promoted action against climate change, was not about saving wildlife and preserving the polar ice cap. It was about national security: it was a group of veterans talking about what it would mean for the safety of American families if the Earth continues to warm.

Metcalf obviously believes that won’t happen, and he’s entitled to his opinion (however wrong he may be). But Metcalf was wrong to call veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan “traitors” for simply talking about how to better protect America.

Here at the DLCC, country always comes before party or ideology. Rep. Metcalf needs to get those priorities straight.

Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Daryl Metcalf is on record saying the state shouldn't care if men are killed in domestic violence incidents.

Metcalf made those remarks after he single-handedly derailed the usually non-controversial State House resolution recognizing Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Metcalf’s only objection was to one part of the resolution that lists the frequency of domestic violence against men and women, for instance that, “One in every four women and one in every nine men will experience domestic violence in his or her lifetime.”

That’s 100% true, and since domestic violence is one of the most chronically under-reported crimes, it’s a statistic that should get more recognition – even from purely symbolic resolutions. But Metcalf, amazingly, objected to that line on the grounds that it “had a homosexual agenda.” When asked to clarify his views, Metcalf made even less sense:

Metcalfe, in an interview yesterday, said he opposed the resolution because it went beyond what he considered traditional domestic-violence programs that help battered women and children.

"It had language woven through it that brought men into the situation," said Metcalfe, who voted for similar resolutions in the last two years. "I don't support the resolution or funding for groups that go beyond helping women."

In other words, Metcalf thinks it is morally wrong to even express concern for male domestic violence victims, such as the 19-year-old Pennsylvania man who was recently murdered by his friend’s ex-fiancé, simply because some of those men might be gay. The bigotry of that point of view is absolutely breath-taking, but it gets worse.

When this story came to our attention, we wondered if Metcalf would also oppose an effort to help female victims of domestic violence. After all, some of those female victims might happen to be lesbians. According to Keystone Progress, Metcalf did just that, and he threw in his own brand of sick humor in the process:

On the same day, also on the House floor, he made matters worse. The House was about to vote on increasing marriage license fees from $3 to $28, with the increased amount going to a fund for victims of domestic abuse. Metcalfe opposed the measure, calling the funding a domestic violence programs “a slap in the face to family values.” The bill passed despite his outrageous claim. [emphasis added]

This is the second time in as many weeks that Republicans have shown how little they care about the devastating problem of domestic violence, and frankly, it’s a story we wish we didn’t have to report.

It is outrageous that representatives of a major political party, in 2009, would treat victims of domestic violence with such utter contempt, and it’s a vivid reminder why that party, the Republicans, simply don’t deserve to govern.

On Monday, in a case involving New York State’s investigation into predatory mortgage lending practices, the US Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling broadening the ability of states to enforce consumer protection laws against banks.

Major banks have long argued that only federal bank regulators can compel them to comply with rules meant to protect consumers from potentially unfair lending practices or pursue cases of potential discrimination against minorities.

The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, disagreed, concluding that state attorneys general can go after national banks on such matters. The court found, however, that states cannot unilaterally require banks to turn over information or change their behavior, the way a regulator can. Rather, they must take the banks to court.

"States were precluded from going forward to enforce consumer-protection laws against banks," said John Cooney, a partner in the law firm Venable and a specialist in regulatory law. "Now they have the green light to move forward in consumer protection and a lot of other areas."

Pennsylvania was the first state to take advantage of the new ruling when Governor Ed Rendell (also on Monday) signed a bipartisan package of state laws designed to protect state residents from unfair mortgage lending practices. The laws had a mix of Democratic and Republican sponsors, and they both passed unanimously in the Democratically-controlled House and the Republican Senate:

The laws will ensure that homeowners get more information about their mortgage terms and protect mortgage company employees who report illegal activity.

Rendell said the laws will help consumers shopping for a mortgage or refinancing their homes.

The new laws are also an important step in preventing the foreclosure crisis from repeating itself in Pennsylvania. Lawmakers believe that consumers who have more accurate information will make wiser financial decisions when seeking a mortgage.

These are not the first state laws aimed at stemming the foreclosure crisis. Back in April, we highlighted a new Illinois law giving a 90-day grace period for homeowners facing foreclosure – time to find a new job, seek debt counseling, or find other ways to get their finances in order. Other states are pursuing similar legislation around the country.

Between this new state-level push to limit foreclosures and yesterday’s landmark Supreme Court ruling, states are poised to play a much bigger role in financial regulation than perhaps ever before.

It wasn't very long ago when it was hard for any legislative campaign to have a website. Unless you were willing to pay a consulting firm an absurd amount of money or knew a very talented kid, your options were pretty limited. Now, that's all changing (in part because of resources like DLCCWeb), and it's a good thing.

In this cycle, we're starting to see some really creative uses of the web. I've already talked about some of the things that activists are doing in Texas. But the folks in the Pennsylvania House Democratic Campaign Committee have some pretty good ideas for using the Internet as well.

This is one of them. Todd Stephens is a Republican candidate for state representative in District 151. He's also an assistant district attorney who is making a slew of questionable decisions:

[R]ather than uphold a strict code of ethics and put our community first, Todd is busy lining his campaign coffers with cash. Todd’s accepted over $5,000 in political contributions from defense attorneys and law firms. And Todd has taken cash from attorneys defending at least five clients—four DUI offenders and one accused sexual predator—with cases pending before his office.

That’s a minimum of five documented conflicts of interests.

Yes, you still try to get folks in the traditional media to write stories about this kind of thing. Yes, you still put facts like these in traditional advertising and mail. But a creative website that allows you to present all the information you have about a candidate costs very little and allows you to attract a lot of new eyeballs. That's exactly what PAHDC has done here.

And it's effective.

Pennsylvania is home to the largest full-time legislature in the country, and that's supposed to be an important responsibility. An assumption that the job will require some sacrifices is part of the reason why citizens of the state provide legislators with a salary of $73,000 a year. But that's apparently not enough money for Republican State Representative Kate Harper:

[In addition to the legislature] the Montgomery County attorney also serves, in a paid capacity, as Upper Moreland Solicitor, Hatfield Borough Council Solicitor and the Milford Township Zoning Board Solicitor.

As you'd expect, the result of all this "service" is that Rep. Harper ends up cutting corners. For instance:

Harper chose to attend various local municipal meetings in her role as Solicitor and skipped her duties in the State House of Representatives on February 11, April 7, May 21, and July 2 just this year.

As the Pennsylvania Progressive tracks down, Rep. Harper didn't bother voting on legislation for mortgage reform or prison reform. She skipped important votes for expanding health care. As the solicitor for a local zoning board, you'd expect her to take an interest in zoning regulations, but she even skipped a vote on that.

It seems pretty clear that Rep. Harper would rather be spending time in her district. Perhaps her Democratic opponent -- Frank Custer -- will give her just that opportunity in November.

In Pennsylvania, longtime Republican strongholds in counties throughout the state are slowly shifting away from the GOP.

On Thursday, in Dauphin County -- which includes the state capitol of Harrisburg -- the numbers of registered voters looked like this: 81,489 Democrats and 81,340 Republicans.

In Philadelphia suburbs like Bucks and Montgomery counties, the trend is the same.

Waves of new Democratic voter were registered during the heated primary contest between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. That month of intensive campaigning certainly helped to put some areas over the top.

But this change is part of a longer-term demographic trend, and the end of the primary hasn't stopped the movement:

Statewide, Democrats have added voters since the April 22 primary, picking up 37,529 registrations while Republicans have lost 1,504, according to figures from the Pennsylvania Department of State [...]

From November 2007 to April's primary, the Republican Party lost 58,119 registered voters.

We still have a lot of work to do between now and November to maintain our control of the Penn. House, but information like this is heartening.

Over the weekend, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community -- an organization with tens of millions in 189 countries worldwide -- held its 60th annual U.S. convention in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Last Wednesday, lawmakers in the state decided to sponsor a ceremonial resolution honoring the group. Resolutions like this are routine and most are approved quickly and unanimously. That's why it was so surprising to see this bill cause a controversy.

But cause controversy it did.

Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, a Republican from near Pittsburgh, prevented the House from even considering the legislation, arguing:

The Muslims do not recognize Jesus Christ as God, and I will be voting negative.

That statement not only offended members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community (the group's president called the remarks, "a form of extremism"), it disturbed many of his fellow lawmakers.

Democratic Rep. Babette Josephs of Philadelphia, a Jewish lawmaker, responded by asking:

I wonder what I would not also qualify for -- being on the floor myself? Having the right to vote? Having the right to practice my religion?

The Pennsylvania press is also taking Metcalfe to task, and this editorial from the Sunday Pittsburgh Post-Gazette hits all the right notes:

The Founding Fathers knew about the dangers of sectarianism from the bitter history of the Old World, which is why the Constitution forbade a religious test for office. In America, you can believe in any faith or none -- and Americans have come to expect that religious tests by their representatives won't be applied in any sphere.

Unfortunately, state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, a Republican from Cranberry, was oblivious to this truth last week. Not for the first time in his career, he rushed in where angels fear to tread [...]

Mr. Metcalfe may have meant his remark innocently, but if you make a career of saying ill-considered things, then as ye sow so shall ye reap -- this time a controversy needlessly incited and hurtful to all sorts of people.

The legislature has the opportunity to reconsider the resolution this week, but with the Harrisburg convention ended, it seems that the moment has passed.

I just can't get past what a shame that is.