GOP Doing All It Can To Keep Pennsylvania’s Gerrymandered Congressional Map

Pennsylvania Republicans took another stab at blocking a court-ordered congressional map on Thursday by filing a new lawsuit that asks a three-judge federal panel to step in.

The suit comes one day after GOP leaders in the state said they had filed an emergency request asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block the new map. In January, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down the congressional map that had been in place since 2011, saying it gave Republicans such a considerable advantage over Democrats that it violated the state’s constitution.

The state Supreme Court gave lawmakers and the governor three weeks to agree on a map, and then stepped in to draw its own when the two parties failed to do so.

In their appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and in their Thursday suit, Republicans said the state Supreme Court didn’t give them a meaningful chance to come up with a new map and that its decision to draw its own plan was unlawful. They argued only the U.S. Constitution grants legislatures the ability to draw congressional maps, and said they want the federal court to instruct the state to use the 2011 map for congressional elections this year.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected that argument earlier this month, when it declined to step in and block the state Supreme Court’s order. Republicans are hoping the courts might be willing to take another look now that the map is in place.

Wanda Murren, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of State, said her agency was already working on implementing the court-ordered map and would continue to do so unless otherwise ordered by the courts.

Source: huffingtonpost