Pa. Supreme Court considers ordering new congressional map before 2018 elections
Source: Philly.com
HARRISBURG Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices on Wednesday interrogated lawyers defending the way the states congressional districts were drawn, a map opponents have challenged as illegally shaped to benefit Republicans, who hold a majority of its seats in the U.S. House.
Based on the tenor of their questions, a majority of the court, which has five Democrats and two Republicans, appeared open to the argument that Pennsylvanias congressional districts are unfairly gerrymandered. A group of Democratic voters has asked the court to overturn the map and order a new one drawn before the 2018 elections, in one of several such lawsuits nationwide. And yet the justices, while acknowledging that politics played a role in the boundary-drawing, must decide whether those political concerns crossed the line and deprived Democratic voters of their constitutional rights.
A test has, I think, eluded every court that has tried to grapple with this, Justice Max Baer, who ran as Democrat, said at one point during the two-and-a-half hour hearing. Over and over, justices asked attorneys for both the 18 Democratic voters who brought the suit and the leaders of the Republican-controlled legislature what the test should be.
Whatever the courts decision, it could have implications for this years midterm elections, when forecasts indicate Democrats have an outside chance of retaking the U.S. House. The justices are expected to rule within the next few weeks.
Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/state/pa-gerrymandering-republicans-partisan-fair-elections-20180117.html
As a note, this is the parallel case that is in the PA state court and the arguments were before the PA State Supreme Court. An earlier case that ran in the federal court a little over a week ago resulted in a panel of federal judges (not en banc however) at the appellate court (3rd district) upholding the gerrymandered map with the argument that they didn't feel it met the test for application of the Elections Clause. There are plans to appeal to the U.S. SCOTUS where other cases (notably the Wisconsin one) are pending.
= new reply since forum marked as read
That was once Joe Sestak's seat and is now the one that gets showcased as one of the worst in the nation (goes through 5 counties).
I think parts are only 800 ft wide. They drew districts so that they went around big cities to capture more rural red areas and then split other smaller cities to dilute them with other rural areas and then concentrated a couple districts in the urban areas of Philly and Pittsburgh.
As an example, here is what the most egregious district (PA-7) has morphed into -
The group Fair Districts PA has a section on how they think it can be handled (legislation and an independent board).
(it confused me too initially)
It's all up to the PA Supreme Court now and we must get a quick ruling. Otherwise it will be too late to redraw the districts before the election. We all know this has to be done after the 2020 census anyway, so why not do it now?
Gerrymandering is good for nobody except the incumbent. (Of course the incumbent's party is also helped.) This favoritism has to end and PA has the worst gerrymandering of the entire country. Just once I'd like our state to be the good example rather than the bad example.
