Pennsylvania: Despite landmark court decision, subjectivity remains in congressional mapmaking process | WHYY

In the days after the Pa. Supreme Court released its new congressional map, students in Jon Kimmel’s 8th grade math class huddled around computers to analyze the changes. The class has been closely following the twists and turns of a case that could have an impact on the balance of power in Washington D.C. In January, the Democratic-majority court ruled that the congressional map created in 2011, in a process controlled by Republicans, was an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. The court found that the old map deprived voters of their right to “free and equal” elections and was designed to give Republicans an unfair advantage, while diluting Democrats’ votes.

Pennsylvania: Clinton County pushes for funding new voting machines | The Express

Clinton County commissioners are rallying financial support for new voting machines to improve election quality. Commissioners Pete Smeltz and Paul Conklin, who were present at Thursday’s voting meeting, said they submitted a letter to state Sens. Joe Scarnati (R-Brockway) and Jake Corman (R-Bellefonte), U.S. Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-Howard) and State Rep. Tom Marino (R-Williamsport) asking them to put pressure on Congress to authorize the remaining $396 million in Help America Vote Act funds so Pennsylvania counties can replace aging election equipment. This cause has the backing of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP), and commissioners agree that most Pennsylvania counties need to replace their voting machines.

Pennsylvania: State Supreme Court denies bid to stop new congressional map | The Morning Call

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court turned away a request to halt the implementation of the congressional district map it produced after declaring the previous map an unconstitutional gerrymander. The court issued the order Tuesday afternoon, simply stating that the request for a stay, led by House Speaker Mike Turzai and Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, is denied. The decision was not unexpected. Following the same fault lines as in other rulings in the case, Democratic justices Debra Todd, Christine Donohue, Kevin Dougherty and David Wecht had the majority, while Democratic Justice Max Baer and Republicans Chief Justice Thomas Saylor and Sallie Mundy dissented. Legal challenges to the map remain a live issue in the federal 3rd Circuit in Harrisburg and in the U.S. Supreme Court, however.

Pennsylvania: GOP asks the U.S. Supreme Court to block Pennsylvania redistricting | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Republicans have intensified their fight over Pennsylvania’s new congressional map, appealing to the nation’s highest court on Wednesday and reviving talk of impeaching the state Democratic Supreme Court justices who threw out the old map. Top GOP lawmakers submitted an emergency request to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, asking the justices to block implementation of the new district boundaries. Meanwhile, national and state Republicans were preparing a separate federal challenge to the map. House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Bradford Woods, and Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, submitted their application for a stay Wednesday evening.

Pennsylvania: New congressional district map could be challenged by Common Cause, NAACP on civil rights grounds | Philadelphia Inquirer

Common Cause helped bring down Pennsylvania’s old congressional district map. Now, in a twist, the good-government group might undo the new map that replaced it. Micah Sims, executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania, said his organization and the state NAACP are considering filing suit in federal court to challenge the new map imposed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court this week. He said it may violate the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which banned obstacles to voting by minorities. Under Pennsylvania’s former 2011 map, drawn by Republicans, nonwhites make up a majority of residents in two Philadelphia-based congressional districts. In the new map, people of color appear to be the majority in only one district, he said. “In general, I think the new map is a really big win for democracy in Pennsylvania,” Sims said. “However, we want to make sure that it is not disenfranchising voters, particularly in Philadelphia.”

Pennsylvania: Republican challenge to Pennsylvania map likely to fail | Politico

President Donald Trump wants Pennsylvania Republicans to fight the implementation of a court-drawn congressional map that threatens a half-dozen GOP-held seats this November, but most operatives and experts see little hope in a legal challenge to the new districts. Republicans in Harrisburg and Washington say they’re moving ahead with legal action to stop the new map. But, behind the scenes, Republican consultants are already urging their clients to get ready for these new districts in 2018. “I’m advising my clients to prepare for the worst-case scenario: that these are the maps this year,” said Mark Harris, a Republican consultant based in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania: Republicans to sue as soon as Wednesday to block redistricted map | The Morning Call

Republicans will file suit to block the new map of Pennsylvania’s congressional districts as soon as Wednesday, officials said. Matt Gorman, communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Tuesday state and federal officials “will sue in federal court as soon as tomorrow to prevent the new partisan map from taking effect.” Top Senate Republican lawyer Drew Crompton said Monday a separation of powers case will form the essence of the GOP’s argument, according to The Associated Press. Republicans again will argue the U.S. Constitution gives state legislatures and governors, not courts, the power to draw congressional boundaries, AP reported.

Pennsylvania: The Math Behind Pennsylvania’s Gerrymandered Map Getting Overturned | WIRED

The morning John Kennedy was set to testify last December, he woke up at 1:30 am, in an unfamiliar hotel room in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, adrenaline coursing through his veins. He’d never gone to court before for anything serious, much less taken the stand. Some time after sunrise, he headed to the courthouse, dressed in a gray Brooks Brothers suit, and spent the next several hours reviewing his notes and frantically pacing the halls. “I think I made a groove in the floor,” Kennedy says. By 3:30 pm, it was finally time. Kennedy’s answers started off slowly, as he worked to steady his nerves. Then, about an hour into his testimony, Exhibit 81 flashed on a screen inside the courtroom. It was a map of part of Pennsylvania’s seventh congressional district, but it might as well have been a chalk outline of a body. “It was like a crime scene,” explains Daniel Jacobson, an attorney for Arnold & Porter, which represented the League of Women Voters in its bid to overturn Pennsylvania’s 2011 electoral map, drawn by the state’s majority Republican General Assembly. The edges of the district skitter in all manner of unnatural directions, drawing comparisons to a sketch of Goofy kicking Donald Duck.

Pennsylvania: State Supreme Court releases new congressional map for 2018 elections | Philadelphia Inquirer

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Monday released a new congressional district map to be used for the 2018 elections for U.S. House seats.Its plan splits only 13 counties. Of those, four counties are split into three districts and nine are split into two districts. By contrast the most recent map, enacted in 2011, split 28 counties. It also includes significant changes to the state map, including dividing Philadelphia into only two congressional districts; currently three House members represent parts of the city. In another win for local Democrats, the fourth district is centered on Montgomery County. Critics of the map adopted in 2011 often pointed to Montgomery County, which was split into five districts in that plan and had no member of congress living in the county. Bucks, Chester, and Delaware counties also receive districts based largely on their areas.

Pennsylvania: The New Pennsylvania House Districts Are In | The New York Times

Perhaps no event will do more to reshape the fight for control of the House than the new congressional map just released by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. At stake was the fate of a Republican gerrymander that intended to cement a 13-5 Republican advantage in an evenly divided state. Now the Republicans will have little to no advantage at all. Democrats couldn’t have asked for much more from the new map. It’s arguably even better for them than the maps they proposed themselves. Over all, a half-dozen competitive Republican-held congressional districts move to the left, endangering several incumbent Republicans, one of whom may now be all but doomed to defeat, and improving Democratic standing in two open races. Based on recent election results, the new congressional map comes very close to achieving partisan balance.

Pennsylvania: State Moves Back Towards Paper Ballots | CBS

Pennsylvania is taking steps to increase security on all voting systems used in the commonwealth. From here moving forward, all voting systems bought for Pennsylvania must have a voter-verifiable paper record of votes cast. Marian Schneider of Verified Voting, an organization which promotes accuracy and transparency in voting, says this is an important step. “The reason that having a paper record of voter intent is because paper cannot be altered by software,” she said.

Pennsylvania: The governor of Pennsylvania rejects Republicans’ new map | The Economist

The best thing that can be said about a new Republican-drawn congressional map for Pennsylvania is that none of the districts resembles a cartoon character. But erasing the lines of a comically gerrymandered district dubbed “Goofy kicking Donald Duck” was not enough to satisfy an order from Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court, said Tom Wolf, the state’s Democratic governor, on February 13th. When the court ruled on January 22nd that the map in use since 2011 was an extreme partisan gerrymander that violates Pennsylvania’s constitution, it gave legislators until February 9th to send Mr Wolf a fairer map. The redrawn districts, the court advised, should be “composed of compact and contiguous territory” and should not gratuitously divide cities and counties. Curiously, the initial order said nothing about fixing the map’s skew toward Republican candidates, which has afforded their party a reliable 13-to-5 advantage in a state with more registered Democrats than Republicans.

Pennsylvania: Governor rejects proposed redistricting map from GOP lawmakers | The Hill

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) on Tuesday rejected a new district map drawn by GOP lawmakers, bringing the state closer to handing its redistricting process over to a court. The GOP map was drawn after the state Supreme Court struck down the state’s current congressional map in a gerrymandering case. Wolf’s press office confirmed that the governor told Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court that he won’t approve the new congressional lines on the grounds that it’s a “partisan gerrymander that does not comply with the court’s order” or state constitution. “Partisan gerrymandering weakens citizen power, promotes gridlock and stifles meaningful reform,” Wolf said in a statement. “As non-partisan analysts have already said, their map maintains a similar partisan advantage by employing many of the same unconstitutional tactics present in their 2011 map.”

Pennsylvania: State Supreme Court gives a blueprint to strike down partisan gerrymandering. | Slate

On Wednesday night, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court finally released its majority opinion explaining why Republicans’ gerrymander of Pennsylvania’s congressional districts violates the state constitution. (On Jan. 22, the court had issued a brief order directing the Legislature to redraw the illegal districts without fully explaining its reasoning.) Justice Debra McCloskey Todd’s 139-page opinion for the court is thorough and persuasive—and, critically, its reasoning isn’t entirely limited to Pennsylvania. Instead, Todd illustrates how dozens of other state constitutions may be interpreted to protect voting rights more robustly than the U.S. Constitution does. Her decision will arm activists in every state with a powerful new tool in the fight against political redistricting.

Pennsylvania: Republicans have drawn a new congressional map that is just as gerrymandered as the old one – The Washington Post

Last month the Pennsylvania Supreme Court instructed the state’s Republican-led legislature to draw a new congressional map after finding the existing one was an illegal partisan gerrymander that violated voters’ right to participate in “free and equal elections.” On Friday, Republican leaders in the legislature submitted their new map for the governor’s approval. As directed by the Supreme Court, the new map is much more compact than the old one. Gone are the infamous convolutions that characterized the old map, earning nicknames such as “Goofy kicking Donald Duck.” 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. #url#

Pennsylvania: GOP proposes a new congressional map. Democrats say it’s still gerrymandered | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A proposed new map of Pennsylvania congressional districts may have sanded off some of the rougher edges of the current version, but it still amounts to a pro-Republican gerrymander, a chorus of Democrats complained Saturday as they urged Gov. Tom Wolf to reject it. The governor, whose administration is combing through the proposal with the advice of a prominent mathematics professor, is expected to announce his position on the new map early this week.

Pennsylvania: Governor wants a paper trail on all voting machines, but money is an issue | Digital Trends

The term “voter fraud” seemed to be as ubiquitous as the candidates’ names in the 2016 presidential race, and now Pennsylvania is hoping to do something about it. On Friday, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf ordered counties planning on replacing their electronic voting systems with machines that would maintain a paper trail, with hopes to guard against interference in a future election. According to the governor’s office, these new systems will improve the security of voting systems, and will also simplify the process of auditing votes. The addition of the paper backup is, in some ways, an antiquated yet effective solution to a decidedly modern problem.

Pennsylvania: Top Republicans in House, Senate submit congressional map to Gov. Wolf | Philadelphia Inquirer

Facing a deadline imposed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the legislature’s two top Republicans late Friday submitted to the governor a new statewide map of congressional districts to replace boundaries the justices ruled were unconstitutional. If approved, the map submitted by Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati (R., Jefferson) and House Speaker Mike Turzai (R., Allegheny) would result in significant changes for the areas surrounding Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The proposed map “complies fully” with the court’s order, the pair said in a joint statement. But within roughly an hour of its public release, top Democrats in the House and the Senate were urging Democratic Gov. Wolf to “reject it outright.”

Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania to require voting machines with paper backup | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf is ordering counties that plan to replace their electronic voting systems to buy machines that leave a paper trail. The Democrat’s administration says the move will increase the security of voting systems and make balloting easier to audit. Pennsylvania is one of a handful of states where most voters use antiquated machines that store votes electronically without printed ballots or other paper-based backups that could be used to double-check the vote.

Pennsylvania: As deadline looms, Republicans consider new strategy for congressional maps | Philadelphia Inquirer

It’s official: The state legislature will not pass a new congressional map before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s Friday deadline. But the Republican leaders who control both chambers weren’t ready Thursday to cede the redrawing of districts to the state’s highest court, which has a Democratic majority. Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati (R., Jefferson) and House Speaker Mike Turzai (R., Allegheny) were considering submitting a draft map to the governor Friday, staffers said. Then they could call lawmakers back in the coming days to vote on that map, or a different one. “We’re blazing new ground here, and we’re trying to meet as many markers as we possibly can,” said Drew Crompton, chief of staff to Scarnati and the Senate’s top lawyer. “I don’t sit here and say this is the perfect solution, but we’re trying to do the best we can.”

Pennsylvania: State Supreme Court releases gerrymandering opinion: 2011 map violates ‘free and equal’ elections | Philadelphia Inquirer

Pennsylvania’s congressional map, as adopted in 2011, violates the state constitution’s guarantee that “elections shall be free and equal,” the state Supreme Court said Wednesday in an opinion explaining its gerrymandering order overturning the map more than two weeks ago. “An election corrupted by extensive, sophisticated gerrymandering and partisan dilution of votes is not ‘free and equal,’ ” Justice Debra McCloskey Todd wrote for the majority. In such circumstances, a “power, civil or military,” to wit, the General Assembly, has in fact “interfere[d] to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage.” The opinion came just two days before the deadline for lawmakers to pass a new congressional district map and send it to Gov. Wolf for approval, after the high court declared Pennsylvania’s congressional map an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander, drawn to benefit Republicans at Democrats’ expense.

Pennsylvania: Concern over condition of voting machines in Pennsylvania | PAHomepage

The May primary election is fast approaching. Congressional seats are the big prize in the 2018 midterms. Questions have been raised about the condition of some of the Commonwealth’s voting machines. Are they up to snuff? The general consensus is, the voting machines can do the job but many of them are nearing the end of their life cycle. The big question is: where do counties, most of which are financially strapped, get the money to replace them? “It’s a huge expense to the county, but when you’re talking about transparency, about elections, we got no choice,” said David Petri, Luzerne County Manager.

Pennsylvania: Justices Won’t Block Pennsylvania Gerrymandering Decision | The New York Times

The United States Supreme Court on Monday refused to stop Pennsylvania’s highest court from requiring lawmakers there to redraw the state’s congressional map, which the state court had found to be marred by partisan gerrymandering. The Supreme Court’s order was expected, as the Pennsylvania court had based its decision solely on the state constitution. On matters of state law, the judgments of state supreme courts are typically final. The order, which gave no reasons, came from Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who acted without referring the case to the full court. The Supreme Court has been busy lately addressing cases on partisan gerrymandering, in which the party in power draws voting districts to give its candidates lopsided advantages. It is considering two such cases, from Wisconsin and Maryland, and has intervened in a third one, from North Carolina. But all of those cases were decided by federal courts.

Pennsylvania: GOP Defies Anti-Gerrymandering Court Order | New York Magazine

In 2012, Pennsylvania voters backed Barack Obama over Mitt Romney by a 5.4 percent margin — and Republicans won 13 of the state’s 18 congressional races. This did not happen because Obama won large numbers of ticket-splitting conservative voters, but rather, because Keystone State Republicans had drafted one of the most spectacularly biased congressional maps in a nation in full of them. A little over a week ago, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that said map “clearly, plainly and palpably” violated the state constitution. Now, a leader of the state’s Republican Party is refusing to comply with a court order related to that ruling — on the grounds that his interpretation of Pennsylvania’s constitution overrides that of the state Supreme Court.

Pennsylvania: The Supreme Court may have signaled that it might block Pennsylvania’s ruling against partisan gerrymandering | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Supreme Court was seen as signaling Monday it may be open to blocking a state ruling on partisan gerrymandering at the behest of Pennsylvania’s Republican leaders. Last week, Pennsylvania’s high court struck down the state’s election districts on the grounds they were drawn to give the GOP a 13-5 majority of its seats in the House of Representatives. Unlike other recent rulings, the state justices said they based their ruling solely on the state’s constitution. Usually, the U.S. Supreme Court has no grounds for reviewing a state court ruling that is based on state law.

Pennsylvania: GOP take gerrymandering case to US high court | Associated Press

Pennsylvania’s top Republican lawmakers asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to stop an order by the state’s highest court in a gerrymandering case brought by Democrats that threw out the boundaries of its 18 congressional districts and ordered them redrawn within three weeks. Republicans who control Pennsylvania’s Legislature wrote that state Supreme Court justices unconstitutionally usurped the authority of lawmakers to create congressional districts and they asked the nation’s high court to put the decision on hold while it considers their claims.

Pennsylvania: Lawmakers push toward amendment to shrink Pennsylvania legislature | WHYY

This could be the year Pennsylvanians vote whether to amend the constitution and shrink the state House of Representatives by a quarter. The process started last session; this year, the same exact bill must pass the legislature again. If it moves fast enough, it could go out to voters as a referendum as soon as November. It has already passed the House State Government Committee on near-party lines — with most Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed. However, it’s getting somewhat tangled up in ongoing disputes about legislative redistricting.

Pennsylvania: Supreme court rejects GOP-drawn congressional districts | The Guardian

The Pennsylvania supreme court on Monday struck down the boundaries of the state’s 18 congressional districts, granting a major victory to plaintiffs who contended that they were unconstitutionally gerrymandered to benefit Republicans. Republicans who controlled the legislature and governor’s office following the 2010 census broke decades of geographical precedent when redrawing the map, producing contorted shapes including one that critics said resembled “Goofy kicking Donald Duck”. They shifted whole counties and cities into different districts in an effort to protect a Republican advantage in the congressional delegation. They succeeded, securing 13 of 18 seats in a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans five to four.

Pennsylvania: Plaintiffs appeal gerrymandering case to Supreme Court after losing at trial | Philadelphia Inquirer

After federal judges rejected their contention that Pennsylvania’s congressional map was the product of unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering, plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit have filed a direct appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 2-1 decision last week, a panel of federal judges sided with Republican lawmakers who drew Pennsylvania’s map in 2011. D. Brooks Smith, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, said that reform “must come from the political process itself, not the courts.”

Pennsylvania: Supreme Court considers ordering new congressional map before 2018 elections | Philadelphia Inquirer

Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices on Wednesday interrogated lawyers defending the way the state’s congressional districts were drawn, a map opponents have challenged as illegally shaped to benefit Republicans, who hold a majority of its seats in the U.S. House. Based on the tenor of their questions, a majority of the court, which has five Democrats and two Republicans, appeared open to the argument that Pennsylvania’s congressional districts are illegally gerrymandered. A group of Democratic voters has asked the court to overturn the map and order a new one drawn before the 2018 elections, in one of several such lawsuits nationwide. The justices, while acknowledging that politics played a role in the boundary-drawing, must decide whether those political concerns crossed the line and deprived Democratic voters of their constitutional rights.