Fate Of Congressional Map Now In PA Supreme Court's Hands

Governor Tom Wolf and lawmakers were unable to come to an agreement on a revised congressional map by this week's deadline, leaving its fate in the hands of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

The map was ordered to be redrawn by the state Supreme Court in January, when it determined the current district boundaries, drawn in 2011, were unconstitutional due to gerrymandering in favor of the Republicans.

The legislature had until Feb. 9 to offer up a replacement map and Wolf had until Feb. 15 to give it his stamp of approval and send to the court. But Wolf rejected the map submitted by the GOP members of the legislature, calling it partisan.

"“As non-partisan analysts have already said, their map maintains a similar partisan advantage by employing many of the same unconstitutional tactics present in their 2011 map," Wolf said in a statement Wednesday, the day he rejected the submission.

The next day, Wolf submitted his own map to the court for consideration just ahead of that deadline. He said in a statement that an analysis by a gerrymandering expert determined his map was statistically more fair than the Republican's submission.

Here is Governor Wolf's map:

Here is the map submitted by the GOP members of the legislature:

Democrats in the legislature as well as Lt. Gov. Mike Stack submitted maps to the court for consideration, WHYY reports. The maps were independently analyzed by mathematician and gerrymandering analyst Moon Duchin, a Tufts University professor. You can read his findings here.

Wolf says his map takes features from the Republican submission, while still meeting the court’s orders to provide Pennsylvanians with fair boundaries. "While my preference would have been for the General Assembly to send me a fair map, I believe this map sets forth a new standard of fairness," Wolf said in a statement.

According to the Supreme Court's order, if the legislature and Wolf could not come to an agreement on a map, "this Court shall proceed expeditiously to adopt a plan based on the evidentiary record developed in the Commonwealth Court."

As WHYY reports, it is currently unclear how exactly the court will judge the submissions to finalize a map.

Stanford University law professor Nathan Persily, who has a background in drawing political district maps, has been hired to assist in the process. Persily is under the gun: The court order says a new map must be publicly available by Monday, the Morning Call reports. It is unclear if that deadline will be met.

The Republican-led legislature previously attempted to stall the process and elevate the issue to the United States Supreme Court, but that request was rejected. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. ordered the case not be referred to the full court, the New York Times reported.

The current system benefits Republicans in Pennsylvania by "borrowing" heavily from Democratic strongholds in southeastern Pennsylvania and west-central Pennsylvania and looping them into Republican districts that are farther away from the blue centers of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. See examples here.

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