Pennsylvania

A Commonwealth Court judge Monday granted a stay in the state lawsuit challenging Pennsylvania’s Congressional district map, as a district judge set a December trial date in a federal lawsuit also seeking to force lawmakers to re-draw the map. Respondents to the state lawsuit, filed by the League of Women Voters PA, argued a ruling should be stayed until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on Gill v. Whitford, a gerrymandering case from Wisconsin. Oral arguments in that case were heard earlier this month, and the Supreme Court justices are continuing to deliberate on that case. The separate lawsuits hope to reach the same end result, but are using different methods to do so.

A group of Democratic Party voters who argue their voices are muted in Pennsylvania’s congressional elections by “rigged” district lines have asked the state Supreme Court to immediately take up the case. The application for extraordinary relief was filed Wednesday night after Commonwealth Court Judge Daniel Pellegrini indicated he would stay the case – initially filed in the lower court – until after the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a different gerrymandering case out of Wisconsin. That delay, however, would likely make it impossible for the Pennsylvania case to have any relevance in the coming 2018 election cycle.

Tom Rentschler, an attorney and former high school teacher, has lived in Berks County for most of his life. He remembers as a young adult going to the grocery store and bumping into his local congressman. But Rentschler, 53, says over time he and other voters in Berks County have lost their voice. “I just don’t think we have anyone speaking for our county,” he says. Berks County once made up a large portion of the 6th U.S. Congressional District. But the last time districts were redrawn in 2011, Berks’ more than 400,000 residents were sliced and diced into four separate congressional districts.