His efforts stymied once before, a Northampton County lawmaker is taking a fresh crack at changing the way Pennsylvania draws its legislative district boundaries. And this time, he apparently has his onetime nemesis on his side.

Democratic Rep. Steve Samuelson of Bethlehem says he’s teamed up with House State Government Committee Chairwoman Babette Josephs, D-Philadelphia, to pass legislation that would alter a once-a-decade redistricting process that critics say is rigged to all but guarantee the re-election of incumbents.

Earlier this year, Samuelson sponsored a constitutional amendment that would have taken redistricting out of the hands of the politicians who now control it and placed it under the auspices of a nonpartisan commission.

Josephs came under heavy fire from reformers this spring after she decided against moving Samuelson’s bill out of her committee. The Philadelphia lawmaker opposed a section of Samuelson’s bill giving some redistricting authority to an ‘‘unelected bureaucrat’‘ from the Legislative Reference Bureau.
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