James R. Roebuck Jr. (Philadelphia)
Roebuck, who remains in the state House, did not return messages for comment or an email request with questions sent through the spokesman for House Democrats.
John P. Sabatina Jr. (Philadelphia)
Sabatina, today a state senator, declined to comment, a spokeswoman for the Senate Democrats said.
Kenneth J. Smith (Lackawanna)
Smith, who is no longer in the state legislature, could not be reached for comment. A voicemail message left at a landline listed under his name was not returned.
Edward G. Staback (Lackwanna, Wayne)
Staback, who is no longer in the state legislature, could not be reached for comment.
W. Curtis Thomas (Philadelphia)
Thomas said “we got letters from our congressmen acknowledging that the plan was OK.”
The reason “why you saw so many Philadelphians voted for it” is because Brady, Schwartz and Fattah were alright with it, he said. “It was kind of hard to say to them that this plan is discriminatory and needs to be thrown out, and they’re saying, ‘We don’t like this, but this is the best we can come away with.'”
Still, Thomas said it was clear that Brady’s district became whiter under the new map and “more favorable” to him.
“This gerrymandering was dealt with based on party and self-interest rather than ‘one person, one vote.’ … I hated having to vote for that. That was just a bad vote, even though there was a push to go and get it done.”
Ronald G. Waters (Delaware, Philadelphia)
Waters, who resigned in 2015
after pleading guilty in an anti-corruption cash-for-favors sting investigation, could not be reached for comment.
Jewell Williams (Philadelphia)
Williams, today the sheriff of Philadelphia, did not return messages for comment left on his cell phone.
Rosita C. Youngblood (Philadelphia)
Youngblood, who remains in the state House, did not return messages for comment or an email request with questions sent through the spokesman for House Democrats.
Others: U.S. Reps., House Minority Leader Frank Dermody, mapmaker
In addition to attempting to contact 36 Democratic state lawmakers who voted for the congressional map, the Inquirer and Daily News reached out to several current and former Democratic members of Congress who lawmakers said supported the map at the time: Bob Brady, Mike Doyle, Jason Altmire and Allyson Schwartz. Also contacted were Erik Arneson, a Republican mapmaker and Senate staffer at the time, and state Rep. Frank Dermody, the leader of the House Democrats, who did not vote for the map but also did not stand in the way of his members doing so.
Frank Dermody (Allegheny)
Dermody said House Democrats had no input in the map. When they met as a group, Dermody said, they could not come to an agreement on what to do, so while he personally saw it as “a very bad, gerrymandered map,” he largely stepped aside as his members voted.
“I voted no and I think I told everybody I voted no and this is why,” he said. “I did not run around, there was no whipping for votes here at all.”
Asked about the Democratic members of Congress who pushed state lawmakers to vote for the map, Dermody said neither state nor federal Democrats could be blamed for the map because Republicans were in control of the process.
“Many members have very good relationships with their congressmen, and that’s to be expected, and we all should work together,” he said. “Obviously, it’s a complicated issue and there’s no question, the way it had been done, the way it was going to be done that year, the Republicans were in the majority and were going to pass whatever map they wanted. And the minority, it’s not fun. So you can’t blame our members or even the members of Congress, because they got what they could get.”
Erik Arneson (Mapmaker, Senate Republicans)
Arneson helped draw the map in 2011 as an aide to state Sen. Dominic Pileggi, the leader of the Senate Republicans. During a sworn deposition for a federal gerrymandering case last year, Arneson said Brady, the head of the Philadelphia Democratic Party, provided feedback to mapmakers during the line-drawing process.
In an interview, he said details were fuzzy but he recalled Brady “shared thoughts on what portions of Delaware County it might be appropriate to include” in Brady’s district. Arneson did not have direct contact with Brady, he said. Asked whether other Democratic members of Congress had similarly reached out, Arneson said he did not believe so — or if they did, it was nothing substantive like Brady.
“My recollection right now, I couldn’t say this with 100 percent certainty, but I don’t remember any other Democratic congressmen reaching out or providing input,” Arneson said.
U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire
Altmire, then a western Pennsylvania Democrat, sent a letter to state lawmakers asking them to support the map. In an email interview, he said he believed the western portion of the map was not unfairly drawn toward Republicans. His district, which was merged with that of Mark Critz, became more Democratic, he said.
Altmire lost to Critz in the primary and Critz then lost to Republican challenger Keith Rothfus in the general election.
“I was confident I could have comfortably held the seat in the general election had I survived the primary,” Altmire wrote.
Altmire said he continues to stand by his decision to support the map.
“It was fairly drawn,” he said of the western half of the state map, “and I believed it was time to move to finalize the map so we could all prepare our campaigns in the new districts.”
Asked whether Democratic congressmen gave input to the map as it was being drawn, Altmire replied in the affirmative: “I am sure they did, and in particular I know [Mike] Doyle and [Bob] Brady had direct involvement and input,” he wrote. “Again, I stayed out of it.”
U.S. Rep. Bob Brady
Brady, the powerful longtime head of the Philadelphia Democratic Party, said he was presented with two maps. One was the map ultimately implemented, which had three seats with significant portions of Philadelphia. The other would have pushed Allyson Schwartz’s district almost entirely out of the city and into Montgomery County.
“It was two plans. One plan got rid of Allyson, put her way out in the county, and she had a very small part of Philadelphia, and the other plan’s the existing plan,” Brady said. He chose the map that gave Philadelphia more clout and “I just wanted to protect Allyson.”
Brady said he made some calls to state lawmakers, as did Schwartz and Chaka Fattah. Brady said he saw only the three districts affecting Philadelphia. He said he did not ask to see the rest of the state.
“I don’t care about the rest … I’m just concerned about Philadelphia, which I should be,” he said. “I’m not in charge of the whole state of Pennsylvania. I’m not in charge of Pennsylvania. I protected Philadelphia. I didn’t know what the rest of the map looked like, nor did I know whether or not it was good for them or bad for them.”
Asked whether that allowed Republicans to thus game the statewide map — and, ultimately, the national map — Brady said it didn’t. Pennsylvania was just a few seats, he said, and Democrats lost elections they weren’t expected to.
“We didn’t think we were going to lose those seats. We didn’t think Critz was going to lose. We didn’t think Altmire was going to lose … so how does that go along with what you’re saying, we put a map and made the state and lose the whole country?” he said.
U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle
Doyle, a western Pennsylvania Democrat, largely demurred when asked about the map.
“I don’t want to discuss something that’s in the past. The courts have taken one of the worst gerrymanders in history and corrected it and now we have a map that, you know, basically is going to result in six Republican, six Democrat and six swing seats, which is about as fair a map as you can draw in Pennsylvania and I’m happy for that,” he said.
State and federal lawmakers said Doyle was among the Democratic members of Congress who encouraged Democrats to support the map. Asked why he backed a map that he considered unfair, he said: “I don’t know what you’re speaking about and I don’t really have an interest in discussing a map that was drawn 10 years ago.”
He denied asking state lawmakers to vote for the map.
“No, I don’t know — you’re talking about 10 years ago, I mean the map was the map, it wasn’t a good map for us and you know, members in the state legislature voted however they wanted to vote, so I didn’t tell anyone how to vote, if that’s what you’re saying.”
U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz
Schwartz, who left Congress to run for governor, did not return a request for comment made through the spokeswoman for Better Medicare Alliance, the group Schwartz leads. Brady said Schwartz supported the map and spoke to state lawmakers about voting for it.