District lines, and candidates, remain in limbo

Raise your hand if you’re confused by the upcoming Congressional mid-term elections? We’re not surprised. First there is the continuing question of the maps themselves. That’s right, we’re still debating the maps.

Let’s review. The state Supreme Court tossed out the Congressional maps enacted by the Republican Legislature back in 2011, ruling they were an unconstitutional gerrymander.

The court ordered GOP leaders in the Legislature to take another swing at it and submit a new plan to Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf. Republicans promptly appealed for help to the U.S. Supreme Court. They lost. Republicans submitted a redrawn map. Wolf rejected it and offered one of his own.

Eventually the state Supreme Court took all the maps that had been submitted by various sides and came up with one of their own.

The results were striking, nowhere more than the Philly suburbs.

Gone was the twisted, grotesque vision of the 7th District, Exhibit A in the battle over gerrymandering, a shape so unique it earned the nickname “Goofy Kicking Donald Duck.”

The same for the 1st, which covered a sliver of eastern Delaware County, including the city of Chester.

Each suburban county now has its own handy-dandy district. The new 5th covers all of Delaware County, along with a part of Montgomery County along the Main Line, and a portion of South Philly. Montco, which had been split up and didn’t have its own representative, now calls the 4th District home.

And the 6th covers all of Chester County, extending out into Berks County and the city of Reading.

Democrats loved what the high court came up with. That’s not surprising, since most experts seemed to think the map drawn up by the 5-2 majority of Democrats on the court would be beneficial in getting Dems to break the 13-5 stranglehold Republicans have held on the state’s Congressional seats.

Republicans were not nearly as enthused. They complained bitterly that the court was replacing one gerryrmander with another.

Rep. Ryan Costello, R-6, of Chester County, went so far as to call the new map “racist” and called for the impeachment of the justices.

Republicans continue to press their case before the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to halt implementation of the map drawn up by the Pa. court.

So don’t fall in love with those new districts just yet. U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Samuel Alito has given all sides in the original gerrymandering lawsuit until 3 p.m. Monday to file responses to the GOP request.

In the meantime, candidates are off and running, gathering signatures and preparing to seek their party’s nominations in the May primary.

Brace yourself, voters. There was a time when voters lamented the lack of choices on the ballot. That does not appear to be a problem this time around.

At this point, it might be easier to list the people who aren’t running.

A candidate forum for those either seeking or interested in running for the Democratic nomination in the newly configured 5th District was held Wednesday night.

No less than 15 candidates showed up, including state Rep. Margo Davidson and Chester Mayor Thaddeus Kirkland, new entries into the fray.

Three of the candidates on hand admitted they did not live within the boundaries of the new district. The law does not require it, but it’s usually considered a hindrance by most experts.

That’s just one of the reasons why the eventual shape of the new districts continues to hang like a shroud over this process.

On the Republican side, six more candidates are jousting for the right to take up the mantle held by U.S. Rep. Pat Meehan, who rolled to three successive dominating re-election victories where he routinely rolled up 60 percent of the vote. Of course, Democrats and the groups who filed suit would argue that was in large part because of the way the district was bent and twisted in the Republican’s favor.

That might not be the case this time around. Now if we can just finally figure out what these districts will actually look like. And who the nominees will be.