Editor's note: This was updated with a response Saturday from the Wolf administration clarifying its position on "safe" injection sites that appeared in a story mentioned below.
Good Friday Morning, Fellow Seekers.
So here's the good news for those well-intentioned folks looking to overhaul the way Pennsylvania draws its congressional boundaries: A critical state Senate committee has unanimously advanced a constitutional amendment that would put the process into the hands of a citizens' commission.
Sort of.
And that's how we segue neatly into the bad news: Legislation that cleared the Senate State Government Committee earlier this week would still leave it to House and Senate leaders, as well as the governor, to pick the panel's membership.
That kind of takes the 'citizen' out of 'citizens commission,' but more on that in a second.
Under the language of a Senate version of the bill that cleared committee on Tuesday (a full Senate vote could come soon), House and Senate leaders would get four picks (two for each party in both chambers), while the governor would get to pick three members.
All of them would have to be confirmed by two-thirds vote, rather than the simple majority required for nearly every other piece of legislation.
The original bill called for the panel's membership to be picked at random - in much the same way that you get called for jury duty. That's something that the committee's chairman, Sen. Mike Folmer, R-Lebanon, opposed, his senior aide, Fred Sembach said.
So that's out.
Meanwhile, the process for picking members; screening them, and confirming them would be tackled in a separate piece of enabling legislation. And that's just another herd of equally contentious cats that lawmakers are going to have to wrangle.
"It's not a complete thought," Carol Kuniholm, of the advocacy group Fair Districts PA. acknowledged Thursday, referring to the Senate bill. "It's a vehicle to get us to reform."
Full credit to Folmer, a thoughtful conservative with a reverence to the state Constitution, who held a series of public hearings on redistricting.
Our initial skepticism notwithstanding, he's proven that he possesses real intellectual seriousness on the issue. Which is far, far more than can be said of what's happened so far in the House (And we hope outgoing Majority Leader Dave Reed is in earnest about tackling the issue).
Anyway, there are any number of questions about the Senate language that have to be ironed out.
Not least of them is what happens if, say, one or more proposed commission members reach that all-important, two-thirds threshold? According to Sembach, it would be back to Ye Olde Drawing Board for lawmakers.
The advantage of a free-standing bill, of course, is that it keeps the state constitution from getting over-stuffed with extraneous bureaucratic language.
But lawmakers would have to have the enabling legislation ready to go before the amendment gets onto the statewide ballot.
And that's where things get messy.
As you'll no doubt recall, proposed constitutional amendments have to be passed in identical form in consecutive legislative sessions to make the statewide ballot.
And, to stay on track for the start of the 2021 redistricting, the House and Senate would have to act on the current bill no later than July 6.
Advocates are praying the Senate bill doesn't end up in the House State Government Committee, where the panel's chairman, Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-Butler, has proven unremittingly hostile to any proposal that doesn't keep power over redistricting squarely in the hands of lawmakers.
Metcalfe has said there's "no greater citizens commission" than the Legislature - with a straight face. And he's bottled up any attempt to force the House's version of the bill out of his committee and onto the floor.
House Democrats have reintroduced their redistricting bill, along with dozens of other bills.
And they've asked Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, to send the redistricting amendment to any committee but Metcalfe's committee. As of this week, Turzai's office hadn't made a call on that.
Kuniholm's group is also keeping the pressure on Turzai to refer the bill to some other committee, such as the Local Government or Rules committees, to avoid the black hole that is the state government panel.
Turzai "knows people are watching," Kuniholm said, so the onus is on him to act.
We'll see.
Turzai has proven remarkably impervious to public pressure in the past. But with an election looming - and some Republican House seats on the line - this time might be different.
Maybe.
The rest of the day's news starts now.
A leading candidate for head of the Montgomery County GOP has dropped out of the race amid harassment and abuse inquiries, City & State Pa. reports.
A South Jersey primary race pitting an old school Democrat against a progressive mirrors the party's larger, national struggle, The Inquirer reports.
Even though other states have done it, Pa. officials are clinging to their claim that releasing details of a $1 billion for Amazon's HQ2 could damage the state's effort to lure the online retailer here, The Post-Gazette reports.
A former State College borough employee has been arrested and charged with stealing public funds, The Centre Daily Times reports (via The Tribune-Review).
Tina Fey dropped in her alma mater, Upper Darby High, this week. Students predictably freaked out, PhillyMag reports.
America's surgeon general has come out in favor of safe injection sites - that could help Philly's effort to start them, BillyPenn reports.
- The administration said Saturday that the story on safe injection sites and the position conveyed in it are inaccurate. Here is the statement the administration emailed Saturday afternoon.
The Administration and the Surgeon General do not support so called "safe" injection sites as a means to combat the opioid epidemic and its consequences. In addition, there is no evidence to demonstrate that these illegal sites reduce drug use or significantly improve health outcomes for those with opioid use disorder. So called "safe" injection sites lack the necessary scientific support to be considered a standardized evidence-based practice in the U.S.
Here's a very floral #Harrisburg Instagram of the Day:
WHYY-FM has some Memorial Day weekend recommendations if you happen to find yourself in Philadelphia.
Ohio attorneys have found Pennsylvania 'instructive' in their quest to get congressional maps in the Buckeye State overturned, WITF-FM reports.
The Morning Call explains the true meaning of Memorial Day - and throws in a smattering of political news, to boot.
Politico looks at Trump's next big economic threat: Surging gas prices.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has told his fellow senators not to book any non-refundable travel for the August recess, Roll Call reports. Which should tell you all you need to know.
WolfWatch.
Gov. Tom Wolf has no public schedule today.
Heavy Rotation.
Let this one soundtrack your last Friday morning before the bank holiday weekend.
Friday's Gratuitous Hockey Link.
Before we got lost in the Stanley Cup final on Monday, here's a bit of baseball news: Baltimore got past Chicago 9-3 on Thursday night. The Os are still a miserable 16-34, but it's a start.
And now you're up to date.