Pennsylvania Republicans present equally partisan new map

Pennsylvania’s gerrymandered 7^th District

Last time we checked in on Pennsylvania, the state was cruising towards a constitutional crisis after Republican officials, bitter that the US Supreme Court refused to block a previous ruling by the state’s top court tossing out their heavily gerrymandered, GOP-favoring district map, proposed to impeach the state court’s Democratic justices who ruled against them instead.

Maybe they’ve realized that likely wouldn’t go well, as they’ve now complied with the state court’s order – somewhat – and submitted their new map. And because they’re Republicans, there’s a predictable problem:

The new districts generally respect county and municipal boundaries and don't “wander seemingly arbitrarily across Pennsylvania,” as the state's Supreme Court wrote. Unfortunately for Pennsylvania voters, the new districts show just as much partisan bias as the old ones.

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From a partisan standpoint, in other words, the new map is almost exactly like the old one. Under the existing map, Democratic House candidates have routinely received roughly 50 percent of the statewide popular House vote but only five of the state's 18 House seats. The new map is unlikely to change that.

You had to see that coming. Can’t really expect anything different from the GOP.

The new map now goes to Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, who will likely throw it out. If that happens, the state supreme court will call on an independent expert from Stanford University to draw up a new map, which the Republicans will likely challenge when it takes away their partisan advantage. And when they finally fail, they’ll be left with no choice but to let Pennsylvanians have fair and equitable elections for once. Oh, the indignity.

(via Dispatches From the Culture Wars)