There are many tools that state lawmakers use to remain in office. The power of incumbency gives lawmakers name recognition, and political advertising, in the guise of constituent information, suddenly appears around election time. Then there is the practice of presenting oversized checks from Harrisburg to local groups, once known as delivering "walking around money."

A less well-known incumbency-protection tool is the power of redistricting, which allows political leaders to use federal census data (collected every 10 years) to draw legislative districts in ways that make them a so-called safe seat for one party or the other. In redistricting, also known as gerrymandering, Republicans and Democrats are co-conspirators working for the sake of the incumbent party — the most entrenched, self-interested group in Harrisburg.

Because legislative districts are intentionally drawn to be non-competitive, in the past 40 years, 100 of the 203 seats in the House of Representatives have remained in the same party's control without interruption.

Writing in the Philadelphia Daily News, columnist John Baer revealed another indicator of the anti-democratic effect of gerrymandered districts, noting, "This year, 100 of 228 seats on the ballot (the entire 203-member House and half of the 50-member Senate) faced no opposition in the April primary and have no opposition in November."

Baer suggests that because removing politicians' control of redistricting threatens to make races more competitive, most incumbents are not interested in a reform that would end partisan gerrymandering.

And though gerrymandering weakens democracy in most states, the League of Women Voters says Pennsylvania's redistricting problems are worse those in every other state, except Georgia.

Gerrymandering is designed to reduce competition and help lawmakers keep their jobs without facing viable challengers. And the motivation for wanting to keep their jobs might have something to do with the generous pay and benefits package, including health care benefits for life, that lawmakers have given themselves. Another factor might be pension benefits that far exceed those available to almost all citizens of the commonwealth.

After the controversial 2 a.m. pay-raise vote of 2005, the calls for reform were loud and clear. But real reforms have been slow to come, and one reason is the lack of turnover in Harrisburg and the degree of control exerted by a handful of legislative leaders.

In the case of redistricting, reform measures have been stuck in committees. In the House, Rep. Babette Josephs, D-Phila., prevented even a discussion of House Bill 2420, which proposes nonpartisan redistricting, to be discussed even though the bill had 92 co-sponsors.

The opportunity for reforming the way districts are drawn faces a June 23 deadline, and many incumbents in Harrisburg will be happy to see the bills quietly die in committee.

The process of redistricting can be taken out of politicians' hands, but it is not easy. In Iowa, the non-partisan Legislative Service Bureau has drawn district boundaries since 1980, making the state a national leader in redistricting fairness. But leading up to that change, there had been 20 years of fighting over redistricting.

While Iowa state lawmakers have the ultimate responsibility for enacting legislative and congressional districts, the Legislative Service Bureau draws up three plans for consideration based on criteria including population equality, unity of counties and cities and compactness — to avoid some of the absurd serpentine-shaped districts drawn to reduce competitiveness in Pennsylvania and other parts of the country.

HB 2420, which remains stuck in committee, calls for a similar approach, with districts being drawn by the Legislative Reference Bureau, an organization with a 100-year history of nonpartisanship.

Limiting competition in elections is a fundamental source of power for incumbents. Many of the most entrenched lawmakers in Harrisburg believe they are not accountable to voters, and running in non-competitive districts only adds to that sense of invulnerability. And that, in turn, leads to abuses of power such as the 2 a.m. vote to increase their own pay, and a quick-and-quiet vote in 2001 to increase their own pension benefits by 50 percent.

Redistricting reform is essential to bringing competition and accountability to state government. Citizens need to press lawmakers to bring the pending proposals out of committee. To fail to do so by the June 23 deadline means the whole process must begin again, from scratch, in the next legislative session.

And to be in place for the redistricting based on 2010 census data, the legislature must amend the state constitution on this issue, which means passage in two consecutive legislative sessions. That means that a bill must be passed this session, and again in the next session, to impact the 2010 redistricting.

The issue of redistricting reform might sound complicated, arcane and boring, which might cause people to not care. And that's exactly what self-serving incumbents in Harrisburg want.

Having reform measures die in committee is good for incumbents, but bad for everyone else. Voters need to let lawmakers know it's time for nonpartisan redistricting.