and again in 2021 (for the 2020 census redistricting) and like they did in 2018, the state Supreme Court imposed a map, which survived a SCOTUS challenge (where they deferred back to the state due to the state Constitution's interpretation by the state Supreme Court).
In 2018, the re-drawn map lead to the torpedoing of the GOP's extreme gerrymandering of 2011 and transformed the 13 (R) - 5 (D) bullshit to 9 (R) - 9 (D). Since PA lost a seat after the 2020 census, the state Supreme Court kept their same map after rejecting the GOP attempt to skew again, and used the map supported by Marc Elias and the "Fair Maps" org, but tweaking to remove a district and re-balance what was left, leaving a handful of toss-up swing districts currently with Dem incumbents.
I did just spot a recent SCOTUS Blog entry where a former GOP congressman is back to the SCOTUS arguing about the state Supreme Court doing the map again -
Pennsylvania’s congressional map returns to the court
By Kalvis Goldeon Jun 17, 2022 at 5:24 pm
(snip)
Pennsylvania lost a seat in the House of Representatives after the 2020 census, and so was required to draw a new map before the 2022 midterm elections. In January, its Republican-controlled state legislature chose a map that would have resulted in nine Democratic-leaning congressional districts and eight Republican-leaning districts. The state’s Democratic governor vetoed the map. After a flurry of litigation, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in late February voted 4-3 to impose a different map that would favor Democrats in 10 of 17 congressional districts.
On March 7, the justices denied two emergency appeals on the shadow docket to revive the new congressional maps drawn by Republican state legislators in Pennsylvania as well as in North Carolina. Ten days later, Republican challengers in the North Carolina case filed a cert petition; that petition was up for consideration at the justices’ conference this week. Now, a former Republican congressional representative for Pennsylvania has filed a cert petition in his state’s case, urging the justices to grant the two petitions together for full merits review next term.
In Costello v. Carter, former Rep. Ryan Costello asks the court to answer two questions related to the drawing of states’ maps for congressional elections. The first question, also presented in the North Carolina case, regards the independent-state-legislature theory: whether the Constitution’s vesting of state legislatures with the authority to set the “Times, Places, and Manner” of elections in Article I, Section 4 precludes state courts from interfering with the maps or other rules those legislatures set for elections. Four justices (the number it takes to grant a cert petition) indicated that this question deserves the court’s full attention when the court declined to intervene in the North Carolina lawsuit.
Costello also asks the justices to consider whether a separate provision of federal elections law invalidates the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s choosing of a new map in defiance of the legislature. In 2 U.S.C. § 2a(c), Congress laid out the procedures that govern a state’s elections after a census count and before formal redistricting takes place. The statute says that “if there is a decrease in the number of Representatives and the number of districts in such State exceeds such decreased number of Representatives, they shall be elected from the State at large.” Costello argues that, because Pennsylvania’s 18 districts “exceed[ed]” the state’s 17 House seats remaining after the 2020 census, the state court’s map violated the instruction from Congress that the state’s next congressional election be at-large until it “is redistricted in the manner provided by the law thereof after any apportionment.”
(snip)
https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/06/pennsylvanias-congressional-map-returns-to-the-court/
= new reply since forum marked as read
