Battle Over Fair Voting Districts In Central Bucks Headed To Court

DOYLESTOWN, PA — The fight over fair voting regions in the Central Bucks School District is headed to court

On Friday, a group of residents calling itself CBSD Fair Votes, announced that it will be challenging the Central Bucks School District in court over its proposed update the district’s voting regions.

Standing outside the Bucks County Justice Center on Friday afternoon, lawyers from Curtin & Heefner joined the residents in putting forward its own three region voting plan for the 121,000 resident school district.

Due to population growth and changes over the past decade the district’s nine regions have become uneven in population and are required by law to be redistricted into equal regions based on population. In the case of a nine region system that would equate to about 13,344 residents in each region.

In December, the school board approved a plan to address the voting regions, submitting to the courts an updated nine region plan. A hearing has been scheduled before a Bucks County judge for February 9.

The proposed school district's nine-region map.

Attorney Brandan Flynn, who was joined at the event by attorney Theresa Golding, called the school district’s plan “unconstitutional,” arguing that it fails to create nearly equal regions, disenfranchises more than 6,000 voters and gerrymanders voting districts to favor Republican Party control of the board.

“We have filed today with the prothonotary a petition to redistrict that is constitutional, it’s fair and it represents the 50-50 division between Republicans and Democrats,” said Flynn.

The board’s plan makes some adjustments, but it does not fix the unconstitutionality of the current plan, said Flynn.

“The deviation between the smaller and larger districts cannot be 10 percent or greater. The board’s proposed plan is 17 percent, so it’s almost twice as high as what is permitted under the constitution,” he argued.

There is another very serious problem with the board’s plan, adds Flynn. It disenfranchises some 6,000 residents living in district five, which includes New Britain Borough and Doylestown Township, he said.

“These individuals last had an opportunity to vote for a school director in 2019,” said Flynn. “Under the current lines they would vote again in 2023. However, the board’s plan makes it so they are not going to vote until 2025. That is a violation of the free and equal protection clause.”

In addition, Flynn said the district’s map does not reflect the partisan makeup of the district.

“The district is just about 50-50. It’s actually slightly higher on the Republican side. However these lines that are proposed would lock in a 7 to 2 Republican advantage on the board for at least the next decade,” he said. “Unfair partisan gerrymandering is a violation of the Pennsylvania Constitution under the Free and Fair Elections Cause.”

Under the law, Central Bucks can have a nine district voting region, a three district region, an at large election or a combination. The district currently has nine voting regions, which the school board’s proposal seeks to continue.

The residents are proposing a three-region plan.

CBSD Fair Votes is putting forward its own plan that would split the district into three regions, which Flynn argues would maintain the balance between the Democrats and Republicans and would be competitive. Each district would elect three members to the board.

“This would give Central Bucks the opportunity to vote for at least one director each election cycle starting in 2025,” he said. “It will also ensure that the people of New Britain Borough and Doylestown Township five are not disenfranchised.”

Doylestown Patch reached out to the Central Bucks School District for comment on Friday's announcement by CBSD Fair Votes. The district declined to comment saying it's a matter of active litigation.

The court has scheduled a hearing for Feb. 9 to consider the school board’s proposed map.

“We are requesting in our filing that the court also consider the Fair Votes plan in that same hearing,” said Flynn. “The court would then be given the opportunity to consider a lawful, Constitutional plan that would be for use in this year’s election. It’s very important that a Constitutional plan be put into place for this year’s election. We will be requesting that the court reject the unconstitutional board plan and adopt the Fair Vote plan at that hearing.”

Former school board member Tracy Suits of Chalfont Borough. (photo by Jeff Werner)

Former school board member Tracy Suits of Chalfont Borough, one of the leaders of Fair Votes, said the public was given less than two days to review the school district’s plan prior to its vote this past fall.

“I asked the board to delay its vote to consider alternatives that would be fairer to the voters,” she said. “With full knowledge that their map disenfranchises 6,000 voters they refused to wait and vote on their map.”

That action by the board led to the formation of CBSD Fair Vote, which in just two weeks has collected more than 3,600 signatures from registered voters favoring a fair map, a map that is reflective of the voter registration, that is not gerrymandered to one party’s advantage and provides all voters with more input in the representation on the board.

“As a former board member I am appalled,” said Suits. “I am appalled that some of the current members of the board gave so little time and care to protecting our right to vote for their representation and their place on that board. They made this decision without exploring any other options, without asking the community for any input.

“For more than a year this board majority has shown time after time again that it will not listen to input from students, parents and community leaders and they label them as activists as if that’s a bad thing,” said Suits. “They did not listen to educational experts or other members sitting on the board with them. Today CBSD Fair Votes is bringing the voices of 3,600 voters to the court to make sure we are heard.”

The gathering also heard from Buckingham resident Shannon Sticker who accused the board of “slicing and dicing” the school board regions “to protect and expand the Republican majority that has plunged our schools into chaos and into the national spotlight.

“Our community has come together to tell the school district, you can’t gerrymander us out of our right to vote,” said Sticker. “Voters deserve to have our voices heard in our school board elections and that starts with fair voting regions.”

Shannon Sticker addresses the press conference outside of the Justice Center. (photo by Jeff Werner)