New map leaves Conor Lamb out of 18th District

reporter reached out to him that morning.

“We only looked at the residences of incumbents,” he said in an email, “but even that was a secondary consideration to compactness and limiting [municipal or county] splits.”

Neal Lesher, a spokesman for Mr. Turzai, said in an email that the residences of congressional candidates were “not at the forefront” of the leaders’ considerations when selecting a map.”

“The placement of lines is driven more by the fact that every district has to be equal in population,” he said. “Just like squeezing a balloon, if you move one line it impacts the whole map and someone else is unhappy.”

The state Supreme Court, in an order issued last month, struck down the current congressional maps, saying they had been unconstitutionally gerrymandered to favor Republicans. It said new maps should be more compact and contiguous than the current maps, which have some strangely shaped districts, including one in the eastern part of the state nicknamed “GoofyKicking Donald.”

The court gave the Republican-controlled General Assembly until this past Friday to submit a congressional map to Mr. Wolf, who would then have until Thursday to approve it and, if he chooses, submit it to the court for consideration.

But, the court said in its order that if either of those deadlines were missed, it intended to intervene to select a map. It’s unclear whether the court would consider a submission by Mr. Scarnati and Mr. Turzai alone compliant with their order. Top Democrats have said they think the submission does not comply with the court’s direction because the map was not voted onby the full Legislature. Mr. Wolf, who has expressed similar concerns, promised to reviewit anyway.

Staffers for the Republican leadershave left open the possibility that they could bring back the House and Senate in coming days to vote on a map, depending on what feedback, if any, they receive fromthe governor.

Patrick Geho, campaign manager for Mr. Saccone, said the representative intends to recuse himself from any votes on a congressional map “due to the fact that he is a candidate for Congress and wants the process to be as open and fair as possible.”