The Central Bucks School District’s proposed map realigning its voting districts violates the U.S. Constitution and the Pennsylvania Public School Code, said attorneys representing “CBSD Fair Votes,” a citizens group.
During a Friday press conference outside the Bucks County Justice Center, Brendan Flynn and Theresa Golding, attorneys with Curtin & Heefner LLP, said the school board’s map would disenfranchise thousands of voters.
“We are here today to represent more than 3,600 CBSD voters,” who signed a petition opposing the district’s map and “approximately 6,000 residents who will be disenfranchised” if the map is approved, Flynn told more than two dozen supporters of Fair Votes and other onlookers who braved the cold to listen.
Inside the courthouse, a representative of the law firm filed the Fair Votes alternative map, which creates three voting districts, each represented by three school directors, with the Bucks County Prothonotary.
The school district’s map continues the nine voting districts, with one school director each, although it significantly realigns those districts. More than 6,000 residents in New Britain Borough and Doylestown Township would be moved from a region with a 2023 voting year to one that has a voting year in 2025.
“That is unconstitutional on its face,” said Flynn. “It violates the free and equal protection law.”
Central Bucks School Board President Dana Hunter, who supports the school board’s preferred plan, did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
According to Golding, the school board’s plan “consists of irregular and contrived regions that are not natural combinations of election districts, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
Redrawing the map and reducing the number of voting districts would make for a more equitable distribution of voters of both political parties, said Tracy Suits, a former CBSD board president and organizer of Fair Votes. “All three districts independently represent the 51 percent Republican voters (in the school district) and the 49 percent Democratic voters.” That party split, Suits said, is reflective of Bucks County overall.
The school board needed to alter its voting districts when population shifts in the 2020 census indicated some directors were representing an unequal number of residents.
The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment requires voting regions be of as even population numbers as possible to ensure each voter’s weight has equal impact in school board elections, Golding explained.
“The board’s map will walk in a 7-2 advantage for at least a decade,” Flynn said.
The Fair Votes group is asking Bucks County court to consider its map when it reviews the school district’s map at a scheduled hearing on Feb. 9.
Time is a notable factor, as candidates for the school board can begin gathering signatures Feb. 14 for the May primary.
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