SCOTUS Justice Alito asks for responses to GOP bid to block new Pa. congressional map

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. on Wednesday asked participants in a key Pennsylvania gerrymandering case to respond to a request from top Republican lawmakers that the nation’s highest court step in and block the new congressional map.

State Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, and House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s ruling overturning the previous congressional map and imposing a new one.

Justice Alito gave participants in the case until 3 p.m. Monday to file their responses.

He made a similar move a few weeks ago after Mr. Scarnati and Mr. Turzai filed a similar request to step in and stop the Pennsylvania Supreme Court from overturning the state’s congressional map. In that first request, Justice Alito sought responses from the parties in the case before denying the request without comment and without referring it to the whole court to decide.

Michael Li, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, has also maintained that the request is unlikely to succeed.

“If you’re a Republican defending a map and you can’t even get Justice Alito to refer the thing to the whole court, that’s a pretty weak challenge,” he said. “And this go round, it’s even weaker.”