This July, the Midtown Scholar Bookstore is pleased to welcome former State Senator Franklin Kury to Harrisburg as he signs copies of his new book, Gerrymandering: A Guide to Congressional Redistricting, Dark Money, and the U.S. Supreme Court. 

“Franklin Kury’s excellent book is as trenchant as it is timely. In it, he provides a great overview of the redistricting process in states like Pennsylvania. He shows how utterly broken that process is in that state and how gerrymandering in places like Pennsylvania is so clearly at odds with the fundamental values that ought to undergird republican democracies. He also shows why it is high time we did something about it.” - TOM WOLF, Governor of Pennsylvania

About the Book:

After placing fair legislative representation in the context of our governmental system, this book shows the anatomy of Pennsylvania’s 2011 Congressional redistricting that was invalidated by the state Supreme Court in 2018. Pennsylvania (and, later, California, the polar opposites of Pennsylvania n its redistricting process) is used as a measuring rod for other states. This is followed by an historical review of gerrymandering in America and the Supreme Court’s role to date in curbing it. The great challenges involved in reforming the redistricting process in states without a ballot referendum process concludes with a description of “dark money” and the virtual impossibility of tracing it in state elections.

About the Author: 

Franklin Kury served six years in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and eight in the Pennsylvania Senate. He practiced law with Reed Smith, a major law firm, and then worked as a lobbyist with Malady and Wooten in Harrisburg, before retiring. This is his third book on legislatures and politics.