Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
A new congressional map for Pa.
State’s Supreme Court places all of Chester County in 6th District
HARRISBURG » Pennsylvania’s high court issued a new congressional district map for the state’s 2018 elections on its self-imposed deadline Monday, all but ensuring that Democratic prospects will improve in several seats and that Republican lawmakers challenge it in federal court as they seek to protect their advantage in the U.S. House.
The map of Pennsylvania’s 18 congressional districts is to be in effect for the May 15 primary and substantially overhauls a congressional map widely viewed as among the nation’s most gerrymandered. The map was approved in a 4-3 decision.
Most significantly, the new map likely gives Democrats a better shot at winning seats in Philadelphia’s heavily populated and moderate suburbs, where Republicans had held seats in bizarrely contorted districts, including the 7th District, which had been labeled “Goofy Kicking Donald Duck.”
Under the new map, all of Chester County would be contained in the 6th District, which would also
include a portion of southwestern Berks County. The old congressional map thrown out by the state Supreme Court split Chester County into three districts: the 6th, 7th and 16th.
Brian McGinnis, chair of the Chester County Democratic Committee, said the new districts are now fairer.
“They are more fairly drawn than the previously gerrymandered districts,” McGinnis said. “This gives the voters an opportunity to change the representatives, rather than the representatives changing the voters.”
Val DIGIORGIO, chairman of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, criticized the new map as being just another from of gerrymandering on the part of the judiciary.
“Today, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court drew and released a new congressional map that is to be in force for this election year,” DIGIORGIO said Monday. “This map constitutes a new standard for judicial activism, unquestionably is a violation of separation of powers, and is a sad day for the commonwealth and the state and federal constitutions. Essentially, this is nothing short of ‘judicial-mandering.’”
In a statement released Monday night, Andrea Bozek, spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Ryan Costello, R-6, accused state Supreme Court justices of partisan bias in drawing the new congressional map.
“This map may be unconstitutional and it is clearly a political gerrymander undertaken by a corrupt redistricting process,” Bozek said. “This isn’t an attempt to create a fair district, it is as an attempt to put Congressman Costello at an electoral disadvantage. It is our understanding the Republican leadership in the state Legislature are considering several options including the possible impeachment of some justices for these blatant, premeditated, partisan actions.”
The redrawn map could boost the Democratic Party’s quest to capture control of the U.S. House and dramatically change Pennsylvania’s predominantly Republican, all-male delegation.
Meanwhile, sitting congressmen, dozens of wouldbe candidates and millions of voters have to sort out which district they live in barely a month before the candidates’ deadline to submit paperwork to run.
Republican lawmakers are expected to quickly challenge the map in federal court, arguing that legislatures and governors, not courts, have the constitutional responsibility to draw congressional maps.
The Democratic-majority state Supreme Court ruled last month in a party line decision that the district boundaries unconstitutionally put partisan interests above neutral line-drawing criteria, such as keeping districts compact and eliminating municipal and county divisions. The decision is the first time a state court threw out congressional boundaries in a partisan gerrymandering case and handed a victory to the group of registered Democratic voters who sued last June in a lawsuit backed by the League of Women Voters.
Candidates can start circulating petitions to run in their new district in a little over a week, Feb. 27. Pennsylvania has seen a surge in interest in running for Congress with six incumbents elected in 2016 not running again — the most in four decades — and Democrats vehemently opposing President Donald Trump.
Pennsylvania’s Republican delegation has provided a crucial pillar of support for Republican control of the U.S. House since 2010.
Republicans who controlled the Legislature and governor’s office after the 2010 census crafted it to elect Republicans and succeeded in that aim: Republicans won 13 of 18 seats in three straight elections under the now-invalidated map, even though Pennsylvania’s statewide elections are often closely divided and registered Democratic voters outnumber Republicans.
The new map will not apply to the March 13 special congressional election in southwestern Pennsylvania’s 18th District between Republican Rick Saccone and Democrat Conor Lamb.