Citizen testimony collated by FDPA Volunteers

January 18, 2022

One commission, two committees and a Governor’s Advisory Council all arranged for public testimony and took public comment. Our volunteers watched every hearing, transcribed oral testimony, and read available submitted written testimony, collating it into a searchable source available to the public.

Citizens submitted testimony or comments to the Legislative Reapportionment Commission (LRC), House State Government Committee (HSGC), Senate State Government Committee (SSGC), and the Governors Redistricting Advisory Council (GRAC). This resulted in many locations to track citizen testimony. Our volunteer team created a Citizen’s Testimony Spreadsheet to organize and centralize summaries and links to the original source. That’s right—one place to look.

The spreadsheet is available to everyone and it is fully indexed for searching. The ”About” tab provides information about the scope of the testimony included and how it’s organized, and the “Summaries” tab contains brief information and links to full testimony.

Citizen's Testimony Spreadsheet

Citizens Testimony Summary

The SUMMARIES provided in this spreadsheet generally cover CITIZEN testimony, plus a few experts on the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and minority communities. The spreadsheet does NOT include a summary of EVERY citizen’s testimony — only those who provided specific, location-based content of potential interest to those drawing or evaluating district maps.

The summaries cover citizen testimony in scope from:

LRC hearings of Aug 3 at 6 pm, August 4 at 5 pm, Sept. 21 at 5 pm., and October 13 as well as the LRC hearings of Jan. 6 to 15.
The HSGC hearings of August 24, 25, and 26 and October 12, 13, 18, 19, and 20, plus location-specific testimony from the Senate SGC hearing of August 4.
Written comments submitted to the LRC from the earliest (July 29) to the closing January 18. These are comments NOT in connection with a hearing, submitted by citizens who identify themselves by name/location—see the entries in the spreadsheet shown as “LRC Comments” [date].
The Listening Sessions of the Governor’s Redistricting Advisory Council held on Oct 18, 22, 25, 27, 29, and Nov. 1, 3, 4, and 8.

What’s not covered in the spreadsheet:

In-scope written comments submitted to the Governor’s PA Redistricting Public Comment Portal, but not also presented at a Listening Session. Duplicative comments when the spreadsheet already substantially documents the issue being reported.

Other notes about the spreadsheet:

The spreadsheet is sorted by PA Zone (CENTRAL, EASTERN, WESTERN), then by county or counties; then by city, township, etc.
The “WITNESS” column contains a link to the complete testimony provided by that witness. The link can be to a transcript of oral testimony or to written comments submitted by that witness to the SGC or LRC.
The spreadsheet focuses on testimony. The coverage of submitted maps and download files is not systematic or comprehensive.
The online HSGC transcripts were prepared by the HSGC. The LRC transcripts were captured and created from the LRC’s video recordings or website by FDPA volunteers using publicly available transcription software.

View the Spreadsheet