EDITORIAL Republicans once again try to sink anti-gerrymandering bill

There they go again.
The state’s Republican legislators once again are taking a hatchet to the bill that would end gerrymandering in Pennsylvania.
Senate Bill 22 was modified last week to include the judiciary in an independent redistricting process that would reshape how legislative maps are drawn and removes partisans from the process. Republicans argued that appellate judges, including the state Supreme Court, should be divided into districts rather than statewide votes that current elect judges.
What a foolish idea. The judiciary should remain independent of any redistricting process that can be tampered with by partisans. But Republican state senators inserted that language into the bill to effectively kill its prospects.
If it sounds like we’re a broken record, it’s because we are. Actually, what’s really broken is Harrisburg.
That’s because every time any bills designed to reduce the size of the General Assembly or end gerrymandering gain a little momentum, they’re buried by craven legislative maneuvers that attach amendments designed to act as “poison pills” to the process. We already experienced that earlier this year with a last-minute amendment to crush any legitimate chance to downsize the bloated Legislature.
Meanwhile, Pennsylvania is a state in crisis on many other fronts. Its budget is perennially a mess, we’re still the only state in the region that doesn’t tax natural gas extraction and unfunded pensions are killing local school districts, among dozens of other problems. And those are controversial issues, unlike the anti-gerrymandering and legislative downsizing bills that are universally popular across the state.
Our legislators in Harrisburg don’t seem to be doing much of anything anymore, except for working overtime to protect their own jobs.