Take Heed: To my home PA-12 on AHCA, Gerrymandering, and Rep. Keith “Jagoff” Rothfus
Dear PA-12,
I’m sure some of you are pissed after the AHCA vote, which your Representative Keith Rothfus voted “yes” for. Some of you are just realizing what it entails (given it never got a Congressional Budget Office Score and most Republicans didn’t read it). Some of you might be rejoicing that the Affordable Care Act might be replaced with the we-aren’t-sure-how-affordable-it-is-because-it-didn’t-get-a-CBO-score-American Health Care Act.
My dearest home district with beautiful rolling green hills and flowing creeks, it seems you got a little played. Just to say, “We repealed Obamacare!” politicians are playing Russian roulette with your health. You, PA-12 who looks like a messed up Rorschach test of a congressional district, are facing challenges not unlike other congressional districts around the country. I guess you weren’t always my district, PA-12. Up until 2013, I was PA-4 (the part on left hand side of the Allegheny River that almost cuts you in half). What is going on? How can I learn more? Why can’t I find more information about what is happening at home?
There is a deep and illustrative story here, PA-12, that you and the rest of the country can learn from. You were ignored by your representative, gerrymandered by the Republican Party, and local news, as committed and admirable as ever, is limited because of budget constraints like many local newspapers.
This trifecta of 1) An unreachable representative 2) a gerrymandered district and 3) limited local news just spells disaster for local democracy.
This somber elegy is for you, dear PA-12, but also for the nation as they learn what is happening in their hometowns that can’t be found on the pages of The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal. I acknowledge that I no longer live there, so I’m not telling you what you should or shouldn’t do — that is up to the people there and their interests. But there are some things that I think you should know about.
Why do I care? Who doesn’t care about their hometown, their family there, and their friends still there?
1. A Missing Representative
I know you tried, PA-12. You wanted to show up at a town hall and be responsible citizens participating in our democracy. When Rep. Rothfus was on recess, he did not hold a town hall. His constituents held multiple town halls around the district, holding up signs with their zip codes to prove they live there (Apparently Senator Pat Toomey thinks his constituents are posers). Many were concerned about losing their healthcare; these districts lean demographically towards senior citizens so they have a lot to lose if Medicaid is halted or if pre-existing conditions are not covered affordably. Still, no show of Rothy-poo.
Thank goodness some folks in your constituency started “Yinzers Against Jagoffs” PAC to raise money to promote activism and engagement in PA-12. This “PAC n’at” has pretty epic chicken costumes.
You are not the only one who ran from his constituents, Representative Rothfus. Maybe you and other representatives were all too busy not-reading the healthcare bill you voted on? It seems to be a trend in Pennsylvania because Senator Pat Toomey was also a no-show. Apparently Pennsylvanians are waking up to the fact they have a “moderate” Republican who votes like he is from Alabama, and Pat is scared.
2. A Gerrymandered District
You didn’t always look like a disjointed dumbbell slapped in the middle of Pennsylvania, inexplicably cracked like the liberty bell by a river running through. This district spans a distance that would be very difficult to drive from one end to the other without leaving the district. What the hell do all these people have in common? They are Republican.
You were once two districts, one of more blue-collar union families and another of more rural and farm kin. Your interests are not all the same, but yet you are boxed into the same constituency and represented by some guy from Sewickley (ewwwww. Okay, people from Sewickley are great, but Sewickley girls were my tennis team’s rival back in the day — old habits die hard). Unfortunately some Republican got it in their head that they wanted to lump this motley crew together so they could guarantee victory. So let us learn a little bit about how you looked before this.
In 2002, Republicans took hold of the State Legislature and radically altered the 12th District. Before the redistricting, since the 1992 redistricting, PA-12 had looked like this:
Pretty fair, right? Seems geographically sound, with highways to get around the district. People probably have similar interests. Who knows. I’m no expert on district drawing, but it doesn’t look ridiculous. After the 2002 redistricting, PA-12 became this:
This looks like Nickelodeon slime that has spilled toxic waste all over the map in an effort to gobble up Republican voters. Meanwhile, I was living in a little town called Natrona Heights. We were chilling in PA-4 after the 2002 redistricting, which looked more or less the same as the 1992 redistricting:
As a child, I felt more connected to Pittsburgh than New Castle, which is in the Northeast side of PA-4, but whatever. It seems like it isn’t drawn too egregiously. There were similar industries and interest in the district; I recall going to Ellwood City with my dad for his work in scrap metal.
Then Pennsylvanian Republicans either got greedy or just crazy with the crayons on the map and drew this mapping in 2011 (that went into effect in 2013) for PA-12, which merged PA-12 with PA-4:
You can barely drive through this district from one end to the other without leaving it! I tried to find a route through it, but gave up really fast. The fact that Natrona Heights should be lumped into a district with Johnstown seems a bit crazy. That is very far away. Other than the idea that people in Natrona Heights and people in Johnstown are both leaning Republican, what else do we have in common? How is this map drawn this way?
PA-12! Look at what has happened! Gerrymandering is a problem around the country — the Supreme Court has ruled it unconstitutional but they don’t really know how to solve the problem justly. Particularly in Republican dominated legislatures (but both parties do this kind of thing), it has just gotten ridiculous. It does not have to be this way: there are new algorithms and methods that map ideal districts so that votes are not wasted and elections are not rigged to contribute to the controlling party’s victory.
I wonder if Rep. Keith would be in office were it not for this gerrymandering? Did the people of Natrona Heights and PA-12 really elect this guy?
3. Limited Local Information
The last section here is dear to me as a Communications scholar, but also one of the hardest sections for me to report on given my extremely limited time researching PA-12 newspapers. I know how hard it is for local newspapers to stay alive and accountable in 2017, given the decline in subscriptions. Interestingly, the Tribune-Review Company (who owns The Valley News Dispatch which I grew up with) in the area of PA-12 notes that from 2007–2012 its readership jumped 17.8% but I also wonder how they are doing five years later with the rise of the Internet.
I will say this. People who study newspapers and audiences have noted that papers often the reflect the political voting patterns of their readership. Like anything else, papers want to serve their readers on their terms sometimes. When papers are trying to gain readership, they are not necessarily likely to make everyone eat their spinach. If you are a Republican, you are most likely reading Republican news sources locally (even if you are getting national coverage from ABC, CNN, or Fox). Simply put, you don’t have an alternative for local news.
Given this slant, will your local paper report on any corruption, negativity, or alternative views that you might actually jibe with? Will they even seek that kind of investigative reporting? Some local papers, like this year’s Pulitzer Prize winner out of Iowa, act as true watchdogs in their community but this is not the norm. Like anything else, you need to diversify your news diet and listen closely to what your representatives are doing from multiple angles.
Final Thoughts with Danielle Tomson
I care deeply about what is happening back home. Given I’m still working on a degree and working in NYC, I won’t move back tomorrow. That said, I will always have ties and connections to PA-12 and therefore I care about what happens there.
I recently emailed the Democratic challenger to Keith Rothfus for 2018, Tom Prigg. He is a brain scientist, a stunt man, a dad, and a US Veteran. At a time where veterans, scientists, and parents are under attack, he sounds like he knows a thing or two. I’m going to learn more about him and keep yinz posted.
This piece is dedicated to the people who live there who deserve better than missing representatives, gerrymandered districts, and limited information in the digital age. This piece is also for those people who don’t live where they grew up, to wake them up about what is happening back home.
There is work to be done.
Note:
Now before you get all “fake news” on me, I’m an independent blogger so I take responsibility for what I say. I’ve done my best to factcheck but Medium has no editors. I’ve cited everything, and trust me, trying to find information on local officials is hard when local papers are partisan, public data is slim, and meeting minutes have really sh*t SEO. Feel free to respond with civility in the comments with suggestions, corrections, and additions. I love hearing from you.
