ICYMI - Barnstorming, quelling a 'blue wave' and Better Boundaries

In the last week, Draw the Lines PA has held events on the Carnegie-Mellon and Pittsburgh university campuses, in State College, Harrisburg and Philadelphia.

Coming up in the next few days, we'll be part of the State of Young Philadelphia events sponsored by our friends at Young Involved Philadlephia, taking part in the state conferences of the Pennsylvania Library Association, and the Pennsylvania Council on Social Studies, and running a Bar Games for Democracy event in Harrisburg, and doing DistrictBuilder demos for students at Drexel University in Philly.

For reports on past and upcoming events, check out our events page.

Next, for a look at what's happening on the redistricting front nationally.

On Point – Public radio looks at gerrymandering in PA

WBUR public radio’s talk show out of Boston took a road trip to King of Prussia and the Lehigh Valley to get a first-hand look at the fight over gerrymandering in our fair Commonwealth.  They conducted interviews at Creed’s Seafood and Steak House in KOP, which was the spot where the notorious old 7th Congressional District (aka “Donald Duck kicking Goofy”) shrank to the width of the restaurant’s parking lot.   One of the people On Point interviewed was Kate Doyle, a member of Draw the Lines’ Eastern steering committee and Montgomery County coordinator for Fair Districts PA.

NBC News – Gerrymandering and the midterms

As political observers try to gauge whether a “Blue Wave” in the coming election will enable Democrats to take back the U.S. House, the question of the degree to which the Republican gerrymanders of 2011 create a breakwall against a Democratic tide is getting a lot of attention. Here’s one look from NBC News.

Here’s another, from the statheads at FiveThirtyEight.

NPR Utah – A look at the Better Boundaries proposal

Utah is one of several states with a redistricting reform proposal up for referendum on its fall ballot.  The state’s public radio stations did this in-depth look at the proposal and the debate it has generated.