Every 10 years, following the U.S. Census, state legislative districts are redrawn to reflect shifts in population.

Here in Pennsylvania, the task of redrawing districts is carried out by the Legislative Reapportionment Commission.

The LRC is comprised of five members.

The first four are the majority and minority leaders of the state House of Representatives and the state Senate (so two Republicans and two Democrats). The fifth and final member was then appointed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to serve as chairman.

The court is controlled by Democrats, and they picked a fellow Democrat, Mark Nordenberg, the former chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh.

This gave Democrats a 3-2 majority on the LRC as they were drawing the state House and Senate maps.

While I did not have a vote on the LRC, I have become interested in the process of redistricting over the past few years as a member of the House of Representatives, and a citizen who, like many others, has become increasingly concerned about gerrymandering.

In fact, I testified before the LRC about the state House districts in Lehigh County being proposed under the new LRC plan.

I testified in opposition to the LRC plan, and I also proposed an alternative map.

In my “Proposed Adjusted Map,” I highlighted how other outside groups and observers have proposed remarkably similar plans for how Lehigh County state House districts should be formed.

They would include districts focused on: the City of Allentown, Northern Lehigh County, southern Lehigh County, eastern Lehigh County with municipalities surrounding Allentown, and western Lehigh County.

These geographic themes popped up in maps proposed by Fair Districts, Amanda Holt and others.

These outside proposals also reduced the number of municipal and school district splits, created districts that were compact and contiguous, and did not dilute voters’ voices based on race.

The LRC map fails Lehigh County voters on all these criteria.

Instead, it places Democratic partisan interests and the protection of incumbents ahead of all else.

As a result, the map has more municipal and school district splits than are necessary, the districts are not compact, and Hispanic voters have spoken out that they see their voices ­- and votes - being diluted.

Those in favor of the map say that the LRC plan is better than what we had in the last set of maps, and therefore they support it.

The problem with that line of thinking or justification is that the outside groups and I all easily showed that there were several alternatives that could achieve the stated goals, without gerrymandering, that were superior to the LRC maps in every category.

Unfortunately, our proposals fell on deaf ears.

While I was not in the state House during the last round of redistricting, I saw up close just how partisan the process was this time around.

We all know that whomever is in power will gerrymander the district lines and the maps overall to their favor.

The shock was that this time it was Democrats who carried out the gerrymander after telling us for years that this sort of practice should be eliminated.

In the March-April 2022 issue of Harvard Magazine there is an article called “Racial Bias and Redistricting.”

The article explained that Democrats gerrymander districts by employing a technique “to ‘crack’ minority voters by spreading them over as many districts as possible to tip the balance of political power in their favor.”

That is exactly what happened in the City of Allentown’s case where there are now three state House districts instead of two.

Sadly, most Democrats and outside groups that claim they are opposed to gerrymandering have been silent or are even defending this shameful practice by saying the map is a positive development.

Thankfully, “We The People” have the power to pick our elected officials.

And, as much as the members of the LRC want to draw a map that advantages Democrats, “We The People” have an opportunity to go to the polls and vote against the Democrats that are now standing up for this type of partisan gerrymandering.

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Editor’s note: State Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, Republican, has represented the 134th Legislative District for the last 10 years. The LRC-approved map places him in the new 187th Legislative District, which includes the townships of Heidelberg, Lower Macungie, Lynn, Upper Macungie (Districts 3, 7, and 8), Washington, and Weisenberg, and the boroughs of Alburtis and Macungie in Lehigh County.