Republicans Beg Supreme Court To Let Them Keep Using An Unconstitutional Map
“There is no need to hurry” to redraw those congressional districts, they said.
Republicans from Pennsylvania and six other states on Monday offered a slew of reasons why the U.S. Supreme Court should give the Keystone State permission not to comply with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s order to draw new congressional districts ahead of the 2018 election.
Their briefs were part of a long-shot Republican effort to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to review the state court’s ruling that Pennsylvania’s latest congressional map so egregiously benefited Republicans that it “clearly, plainly and palpably” violated the state constitution. While top GOP state lawmakers say that the high court can review the case because there are federal issues at stake, lawyers for the plaintiffs say that the justices cannot because the case only presents a question under Pennsylvania law.
But first the state lawmakers and their allies need an emergency stay of the Pennsylvania court’s redistricting order, the pleas for which are hitting Justice Samuel Alito’s desk. Alito is responsible for overseeing such appeals from the 3rd Circuit.
Six Republican secretaries of state ― from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and South Carolina ― filed a joint amicus brief on Monday arguing that Pennsylvania could reasonably wait another few years to fix its congressional map. They said that Pennsylvania lawmakers could abide by any new restrictions on partisan gerrymandering during the next round of redistricting in 2021.
That would mean that two more federal elections ― in 2018 and 2020 ― would take place under a congressional map that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found unconstitutional.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...2e5e4b05836a255cdc2?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
“There is no need to hurry” to redraw those congressional districts, they said.
Republicans from Pennsylvania and six other states on Monday offered a slew of reasons why the U.S. Supreme Court should give the Keystone State permission not to comply with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s order to draw new congressional districts ahead of the 2018 election.
Their briefs were part of a long-shot Republican effort to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to review the state court’s ruling that Pennsylvania’s latest congressional map so egregiously benefited Republicans that it “clearly, plainly and palpably” violated the state constitution. While top GOP state lawmakers say that the high court can review the case because there are federal issues at stake, lawyers for the plaintiffs say that the justices cannot because the case only presents a question under Pennsylvania law.
But first the state lawmakers and their allies need an emergency stay of the Pennsylvania court’s redistricting order, the pleas for which are hitting Justice Samuel Alito’s desk. Alito is responsible for overseeing such appeals from the 3rd Circuit.
Six Republican secretaries of state ― from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and South Carolina ― filed a joint amicus brief on Monday arguing that Pennsylvania could reasonably wait another few years to fix its congressional map. They said that Pennsylvania lawmakers could abide by any new restrictions on partisan gerrymandering during the next round of redistricting in 2021.
That would mean that two more federal elections ― in 2018 and 2020 ― would take place under a congressional map that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found unconstitutional.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...2e5e4b05836a255cdc2?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
