This article is part of a yearlong reporting project focused on redistricting and gerrymandering in Pennsylvania. It is made possible by the support of Spotlight PA members and Votebeat, a project focused on election integrity and voting access.
An appellate judge has recommended the Pennsylvania Supreme Court adopt the congressional map passed by the Republican-controlled General Assembly and rejected by Gov. Tom Wolf, citing its legislative approval and how it reflects the GOP’s geographic advantage.
Commonwealth Court Judge Patricia McCullough selected the map from among more than a dozen proposals submitted by Wolf, top legislative leaders, citizen groups, and others as part of an ongoing lawsuit over the highly consequential district lines.
McCullough was set to pick a final map before the state Supreme Court accepted a request to take over the process, and asked her to instead make a recommendation. The high court is not required to follow McCullough’s counsel as it prepares to hold hearings on the map. The justices can pick one of the proposals, alter them, or draw a different map.
Pennsylvania must draw new district lines every 10 years to reflect population changes. Because of the state’s sluggish growth in the 2010s, it will lose one of its 18 congressional seats.
Wolf, a Democrat, vetoed the Republican map in January, calling it “highly skewed.” While it does fulfill base, neutral criteria outlined in a previous ruling by the state Supreme Court, the map does not reflect the partisan composition of the state, nonpartisan analyses show.
The map was originally drawn by Amanda Holt, a noted redistricting advocate and former Republican Lehigh County commissioner, and championed by state Rep. Seth Grove (R-York). The original map was amended after Republican members of the House State Government Committee, the panel that first considered the proposal, complained about divisions in their counties.
Anticipating an impasse between Wolf and Republican lawmakers, two groups of Pennsylvanians filed lawsuits in December asking Commonwealth Court to take over the process. The court, in turn, asked the citizen petitioners, Wolf, top Republicans and Democrats, and good-government advocates to submit their own proposed maps.
McCullough, a Republican, presided over two days of hearings on more than a dozen proposals. She cited the House GOP map’s passage through the legislative process as a factor for its selection, writing the interests of the state “would best be served” by considering that the map “is functionally tantamount to the voice and will of the People.”
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