Spotlight PA is reporting… HARRISBURG — Thousands of people incarcerated in state prisons will be counted in their home communities rather than in corrections facilities when Pennsylvania redraws its legislative maps, a major change that advocates hailed as the end of a racist policy. The Legislative Reapportionment Commission voted 3-2 in favor of a resolution introduced by House Minority Leader Joanna McClinton (D., Philadelphia), who said it “makes no sense” to count people in communities where they have no long-term relationships or plans to remain. The panel is charged with redrawing Pennsylvania’s state House and Senate maps every 10 years after the release of new population data by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Under the resolution passed Tuesday, state prisoners will be counted at the address where they lived immediately prior to being sentenced if they are Pennsylvania residents. It excludes people who were not residents of the state prior to being sentenced as well as people serving life sentences. “We cannot wait another 10 years,” McClinton said of the change. “The time to correct this injustice is now.” Opponents call the practice prison gerrymandering. In Pennsylvania, it has boosted the population of primarily white, rural districts where many of the state prisons are located at the expense of communities of color in areas including Philadelphia and Allegheny County. More than 37,000 people are currently incarcerated in Pennsylvania’s state prisons. People of color are overrepresented inside these facilities: While less than 20% of Pennsylvania residents are Black or Hispanic, 56.2% of state prisoners are from one of those groups.
Mark Nordenberg — the chair of the reapportionment commission, who voted in favor of the resolution with the two Democratic members — said the decision was a difficult one, as the panel had trouble getting data from the Department of Corrections, and there were concerns about its quality. “Neither the process nor the product that it produced is ideal,” he said. But once being assured by the panel’s chief counsel that the members had the legal right to act, and after reviewing relevant laws and court rulings, Nordenberg said he did not think the commission should wait another 10 years to make the change. “When a system holds and counts a person in one place but forces him or her on to vote in another, it does create a basic issue of fairness,” Nordenberg said, referencing a state law that allows people in state prisons serving time for a misdemeanor to vote in their home communities.
The practice, he continued, means votes in areas with state prisons “carry more weight than the votes cast in districts that do not include such institutions.” The resolution does not affect the state’s congressional map, which will be drawn by the Republican-controlled legislature and approved by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf. It also does not impact federal or county prisons. Republicans on the panel expressed concerns about fairness and unequal treatment before voting against the measure. Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward (R., Westmoreland) said it seemed wrong to her that college students would be counted where they learn while incarcerated people would be counted in their home communities. “I know [prisoners are not there] by their choice, but they really are because they committed a crime, and they’ve been convicted of a crime,” she said. “They lost their right to choose where they live.”
PennLive is reporting… By Daniel Urie | durie@pennlive.com A weekly newspaper that serves the residents of northern Dauphin County has announced it will soon cease publication. In this week’s edition of the Upper Dauphin Sentinel, publisher Ben Kocher announced that the last issue will be published next Tuesday, Aug. 31. Kocher purchased the paper in 1970 at the age of 24 and now at age 76, he said “It’s time to take a break.” “During the past several years, I’ve tried to sell the newspaper,” he wrote in Tuesday’s edition. ” In today’s world, weekly newspapers are not an easy thing to sell.” The newspaper is located at 510 Union St. in Millersburg. “We’ve only been able to publish these last 50 years, week in and week out, because of the hard work and dedication of some phenomenal employees,” Kocher wrote. “They have been essential in making this newspaper what it is, and I’m forever grateful.”
The newspaper’s coverage area covers upper Dauphin, lower Northumberland and western Schuylkill counties, which includes the Halifax, Line Mountain, Millersburg, Upper Dauphin Area and Williams Valley school districts as well as Dauphin Borough and Middle Paxton Township. The Sentinel traces its roots back to 1884 and the founding of The Millersburg Sentinel, and that newspaper eventually acquired the other community weekly, The Millersburg Herald, according to the Sentinel’s website. Kocher acquired The Millersburg Sentinel in 1970, and a year later purchased The Elizabethville Echo and The Williamstown Times. The first issue of The Upper Dauphin Sentinel was published in January 1972. Kocher’s other businesses that operate out of that location will continue: SDPcreative, a design, marketing and printing services firm and Everyday Blessings Gift Shoppe. Subscribers are asked to call the newspaper’s office by Sept. 30 for a refund if their subscription is due in October or November. If their subscription is due in December through July then they will receive an automatic refund. August subscribers were not billed.
Mark Lawrence
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