A contractor for Pittsburgh city government who is friends with Pittsburgh Police Chief Nate Harper is being charged with bribery. Rich Lord has the story:

The founder of several local companies has been charged with bribery, conspiracy and mail fraud and is due to appear in federal court at 1:45 p.m. today.

Arthur J. Bedway Jr., 63, of Robinson, created the firm Alpha Outfitters, which won a city contract in 2007 to install, service and maintain the computers in City of Pittsburgh police cars. Police Chief Nate Harper, who had been a friend of Mr. Bedway, avoided any involvement in the contracting process.

According to the charges against Mr. Bedway, he falsely portrayed Alpha Outfitters as a woman-owned business. He then conspired with a city employee, Christine Kebr, to win the contract, and paid her for assistance, in violation of laws against bribing an agent of an organization receiving federal funds.

The indictment, not yet available, includes seven counts.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Cessar is handling the prosecution.

The FBI arrested Mr. Bedway earlier this week. His initial court appearance will be before U.S. Magistrate Judge Maureen Kelly.

Mr. Bedway's attorney, Martin Dietz, could not be reached for comment Thursday or this morning.

Mr. Bedway has chaired Carnegie-based Victory Security, a large guard firm he founded that has been credited with reducing crime in several housing developments and which employed Chief Harper's wife for a time.

The Post-Gazette chronicled his career here.

With all the talk lately on how/if redistricting played into Republicans taking 13 of the state's 18 congressional seats last week, it's worth noting that the lack of new maps in the state Legislature helped Democrats there. Just ask Republican Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati.

Democrats picked up 3 Senate seats last week, making the party split 27-23, the narrowest GOP lead in two decades. The AP's Marc Levy has the story:

But Scarnati also insisted that the Democratic election gains were a result of decade-old district boundaries newer, Republican-favored maps are still awaiting court approval and a huge Democratic voter turnout to support the re-election of President Barack Obama.

"I do not see it as our policy, I don't see it as our leadership and I don't see it as our failure," Scarnati said. "We're going to continue as we have in the past. We'll be aggressive in making sure that our policies in the Senate's Republican caucus will have their vote on the floor."

A slim state Supreme Court majority (joined by Chief Justice Ronald Castille, a Republican) threw out the proposed legislative lines in January. They heard testimony on proposed new lines in September. One example of the kind of seat the GOP could pick up in 2014 is the proposed 38th, which was carved to give incumbent Democratic firebrand Jim Ferlo most of the GOP-packed North Hills represented by Shaler Republican Randy Vulakoviich and the tiny bit of blue Pittsburgh where Ferlo lives.

UPDATE: There's an interesting study at elections site The Monkey Cage today showing that where Democrats controlled redistricting they saw congressional gains, but at rates smaller than in GOP-controlled states. Democrats also outperfomed in states without the urban/rural divide seen in states like Pa, mostly because of the surge of Dem-voting Hispanics. The conclusion:

In direct support of the Chen and Rodden argument, states that are heavily urbanized (such as New Jersey and Pennsylvania) are more distorted against Democrats than more rural states (such as Minnesota and Wisconsin). Indeed, urbanization has a negative and significant effect on the difference between seats won by Democrats and expected seats, even after controlling for the party in control of redistricting.

Of course, this analysis does not imply that Democrats are doomed to the minority for the foreseeable future, or even the next decade. The Pennsylvania map includes five Republican seats won by Obama in 2008, suggesting that a wave of sufficient strength could reverse the delegation's majority. But because of unequal concentrations of vote share in most states, not just those with Republican gerrymanders, a Democratic majority will be more difficult than it should be. And this difficulty persists even when both parties agree to the maps.

Changing our redistricting institutions alone will not assure national proportionality.

Graphic: Chris Briem/Null Space

The state NAACP had its convention in Washington, Pa., Friday with headline speaker Benjamin Todd Jealous (above), the group's national president. Activists were of course happy over Barack Obama's reelection but sounded warning bells over the future, writes Janice Crompton:

Mr. Jealous, who was the keynote speaker at the 78th annual NAACP Pennsylvania State Convention Freedom Fund banquet, held Friday evening at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in North Strabane, said the black vote will "be in play in 2016."

"According to our polls, as soon as Obama is off the ticket, enthusiasm drops 20 percent. Voter engagement, therefore, and voter turnout drop 20 percent," Mr. Jealous said. "Why? Because our people know the Democratic Party has taken them for granted for too long, and the Democratic Party can't afford to get cocky right now."

And on voter ID:

"It was very important because we always felt the law was passed to disenfranchise the largest voter groups from 2008, which include women, seniors and students," said [director of civic engagement John W. Jordan], who traveled to the conference from his home in Corydon, near Philadelphia. "To have everyone vote freely and without restriction was huge."

Now, the push is on from the NAACP, the American Civil Liberties Union and other civic groups to permanently defeat the new law -- which would require voters to show photo ID at the polls beginning next year.

"We view it as a poll tax," said Jerome Mondesire, the president of the state NAACP conference, who said the organization is gearing up to reverse the law. If the group loses, it will appeal as far as it can -- perhaps even to the U.S. Supreme Court, he said.

"We're not going to go to sleep on the voter ID issue," said Mr. Mondesire, a newspaper publisher from Philadelphia. "It's too critical."

The mood was cheerful this morning as Senate Democrats gathered at the Harrisburg Hilton to welcome three new members elected last week.

As Sen. Daylin Leach put it, even supporters had harbored serious doubts about the caucus's campaign abilities before the Senate Democrats held their own in the 2010 cycle.

"Frankly, there was a lot of skepticism," Leach said. "The Senate Demorats for decades had been saying they're going to pick up seats, they're going to do this, and we never did. And people were frankly tired of investing and didn't have a lot of confidence in what we were able to do."

This time around, the Democrats are welcoming former Rep. Matt Smith of Mt. Lebanon, who claimed the seat held by Republican former Sen. John Pippy; Rob Teplitz, who will represent the Harrisburg seat held by retiring Republican Sen. Jeffrey Piccola; and Sean Wiley, whose Erie district has been represented by retiring Republican Sen. Jane Earll.

Smith won the seat by beating out Republican D. Raja, a fellow Mt. Lebanon resident. (They live close enough that Smith's running route takes him by his opponent's home.) But another Democrat, Greg Parks, had initially landed a spot on the ballot after a write-in campaign, and it was only after he withdrew that Smith was nominated to run for Senate.

Before his Senate bid came about, Smith told the breakfast crowd, his wife and kids had been thrilled that his dual Republican-Democratic nominations for his House seat meant a pre-eleciton summer without much fundraising or door-knocking.

When it became apparent that Parks would drop out, Smith said he told his wife about the news, along with a little background about the string of Republicans that had held the seat, including U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy and federal Judge Mike Fisher.

"She said, well that's great, what idiot are they going to get to run?" he said. "I said, well, I said, funny you ask that. There's a little bit of a change in plan potentially for our summer"

The crowd liked it. And of course, Smith said, his family got behind the Senate bid.