HARRISBURG PA — Monday (Dec. 12, 2011) will be D-Day for all levels of Pennsylvania’s political redistricting process, The Pennsylvania Independent online news service reported Thursday (Dec. 9).

With state legislative and congressional redistricting still waiting to be completed, lawmakers in charge of the two separate procedures have pointed to Monday as the day they will each take respective big steps toward finishing new maps.

At the state level, the five-member Legislative Reapportionment Commission plans to hold a final voting meeting at noon to approve the new state House and Senate maps that will be used for the next decade. Republican chairmen of the House and Senate State Government Committees, which handle the drawing of the new congressional district maps, plan a joint informational meeting on the same day to make the new congressional map public for the first time.

The congressional districts have been negotiated behind closed doors, and as of Wednesday afternoon, details still needed to be worked out, said House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny. Turzai said he expects the map will be ready by Monday. The new map will include only 18 congressional districts, as Pennsylvania is losing one due to lower population growth than the national average.

• Read a story by reporter Eric Boehm, titled “PA’s congressional maps will be made public Monday” and published Thursday by The Independent, here.