Posted on 01/22/2018 11:35:12 AM PST by napscoordinator
Pennsylvania's Republican-leaning congressional map is illegal and must be redrawn, according to a 4-3 ruling by the Democratic-leaning state Supreme Court.
The 3-page ruling was released this afternoon.
The order says the state’s 2011 map “plainly and palpably violates the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.” The ruling directs the GOP-controlled Legislature to redraw the map and submit it to Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, by Feb. 9 and the court for approval by Feb. 15. If lawmakers or the governor miss those deadlines, the court would draw its own map “based on the evidentiary record developed.”
Gerrymandering foes urged to apply pressure A new map would impact the candidates running in the May 18 because those district boundaries could change. Republicans have consistently won 13 of the state’s 20 congressional seats since the map went into effect in the 2012 election.
Democrats quickly took to Twitter to celebrate the victory. But it could be a short one.
(Excerpt) Read more at mcall.com ...
R’s still get to draw the districts.
Oh, crap.
This is a biased decision from an ultraleft State Judiciary that doesn’t like the Republicans having a majority. It should easily be tossed by SCOTUS.
Look closer. This is a Republican district and has been ever esince it was created in 2011.
Yes it is quite biased, but don’t get your hopes up for SCOTUS help.
If that were possible, then why were recent highly partisan (Democrat) judicial decisions regarding the maps in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia allowed to stand?
Democrap PA Supremes attempting to steal 5 Republican Congressional seats with their illegitimate judicial fiat.
Every district in MA is gerrymandered Democrat. No Republican has been elected to ANY House seat there in 24 years (1994). Where’s the MA Supremes demanding fair representation by ordering 3 or 4 of the 9 seats be drawn for Republicans ?
I hold each troubling. Democrats had free hands for eons to screw Republicans. But heaven forbid Republicans draw seats for themselves. Florida is especially egregious since they have a so-called “Fair Districts” state law which should be tossed out for interfering with the right of the GOP majority to draw the lines. It’s cost the GOP several seats as a result.
Even worse are the so-called “non-partisan” panels to draw seats in some states, such as in CA and AZ, both of which have drawn heavily Democrat majority seats. AZ should have a 7R-2D delegation and barely clings to a 5R-4D one.
That’s the new district. Keith Rothfus won that District as a Republican in 2012. However, under the old lines, the Democrat barely held on in 2010. Western Pennsylvania has flipped pretty solidly red, so I think Rothfus would win handedly even under the old lines. The Twitter fools are counting places like this as easy pickups if the districts are redrawn, but they are too stupid to realize how badly the Western Part of the State has flipped against them.
It certainly is not right that democrats are allowed to create gerrymandered districts in other states.
If I were to be honest, the way my CD is drawn, it is probably set up to keep it R. It is primarily the “white” areas of Tallahassee and goes south to the Gulf covering the rural areas down to Panama City and southeast taking in the rural areas along the Gulf to Dixie County. From West to East, it’s 240 miles ending just North of the Tampa suburbs. D-5 is primarily Gadsden County to the Georgia line and the “black” and college areas of Tallahassee. Gadsden County, interestingly enough, is the only “minority majority” county in the state.
Maybe every Congressman should be given a pen and a map, and if he can’t draw his district boundary accurately from memory then we go back to square one and start over.
Partisan state courts should not be allowed to draw federal election maps. Period.
Democrats for 100 years drew the maps in NC and they were a ok with that. Now that Repubs draw them it is unconstitutional. Go figure.
“Fix your Gerrymandered map or we’ll Gerrymander it for you.” That’s essentially what they’re saying.
I’m not ruling out fake news on this. Is there any indication that the gerrymandered district illustrated is the Republican’s doing? How long had it been in effect?
Yep. Districts should be drawn to enclose the correct number of Citizens so that the length of district boundary line is held to a minimum. Such a map could be computer drawn. The State legislatures could choose from among a set of computer generated maps. This would result in irregular lumpish shapes but gerrymandering would be a thing of the past.
No demographic besides “Citizen” should be tolerated ever. Non-Citizens should not be counted.
A further improvement should be to do away with the present limits on the size of the US House and at least double the size of it in one fell swoop. Thereafter the number of districts could be increased towards some maximum population limit is added stages and the House continue to grow after that as the population of Citizens generally grows.
The resulting smaller districts would be arguably even less irregular in shape. The Swamp would have a devil of a time roping in all the new blood.
Yours is designed to elect a Republican. If Black voters were “unpacked” as they mostly were prior to 1992 (with some exceptions), it would only serve to benefit White Democrats, which have become an endangered species in many Southern states outside the cities.
The court relied on the Pennsylvania Constitution, not on the federal Constitution, so SCOTUS probably has no jurisdiction to review it.
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