On September 13, 2021, Governor Tom Wolf created the Pennsylvania Redistricting Advisory Council to help ensure the integrity of elections in the commonwealth. Professor Tabatha Abu El-Haj was selected, along with five others, to serve on the council.
Redistricting will play a pivotal role in upcoming local and national elections. The council will provide expert guidance to Governor Wolf during the review of the congressional redistricting plan later this year. The council “will review processes in other states that reduce gerrymandering, develop factors to determine if a plan improves the integrity and fairness and prevents the dilution of a person’s vote and offer recommendations to ensure that districts are compact and contiguous to keep communities together and ensure people are proportionally represented,” according to a press release from the Governor’s Office.
“I am honored to have been selected to participate in this Advisory Council,” said Abu El-Haj, whose research on law and the American political process focuses on ways to increase the democratic accountability and responsiveness of government to ordinary Americans through voting but also political organizing. “This is certainly an important time to be working to ensure our electoral systems are capable of producing democratic accountability.”
The members of the council include:
- Tabatha Abu El-Haj, PhD, JD, professor of law, Drexel University
- Lee Ann Banaszak, PhD, political scientist, Penn State University
- Beth Campbell PhD, mathematician, Gettysburg College
- Christopher S. Fowler, PhD, geographer, Penn State University
- John J. Kennedy, PhD, political scientist, West Chester University
- Sozi Tulante, JD, former Philadelphia City Solicitor