Pennsylvania Republican Legislative Leaders Again ask U.S. Supreme Court to Block New U.S. House District Boundaries

Posted on by February 21, 2018

On February 21, Republican leaders in the Pennsylvania legislature again asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the new U.S. House district boundaries that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently created. Here is the brief. It is called Turzai v League of Women Voters, just like the last similar request. The last request had been made on January 26 and had been denied on February 5. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

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Pennsylvania Republican Legislative Leaders Again ask U.S. Supreme Court to Block New U.S. House District Boundaries — 11 Comments

  1. Which gang has the most lawyers getting paid the most per second ???

    Communist Donkeys — the gerrymander EC cases

    OR

    Fascist Elephants – the PA gerrymander case

  5. Better than trying to file an original action in District Court, but will quite likely fail for the same reason Justice Alito refused to refer the prior application to the full Court.

  6. Several GOP members of the PA Legislature are now pushing the idea of impeaching the 5 PA Supreme Court Justices. I think the idea is unwise.

  7. These are the same clowns that pushed to have a very deceptive and misleading question placed on the general election ballot the last time around.

    Here is an old post (from before the 2016 general election) regarding the deceptive ballot question:

    No matter if you are voting for Trump, Hillary, Johnson, Stein, Castle or going with a write-in candidate, I hope that all of you will consider voting NO to the ballot question regarding the retirement age of judges. The current retirement age is 70. The PA legislature created a deceptive ballot question designed to fool you. Many lawmakers who swept into office claiming to be reformers that would clean up Harrisburg and the corruption in PA are supporting this deceptive ballot question.

    Here is the wording of the ballot question:

    “Shall the Pennsylvania Constitution be amended to require that justices of the Supreme Court, judges, and magisterial district judges be retired on the last day of the calendar year in which they attain the age of 75 years?”

    Term limits! Sounds great, right? That is what they want you to think. The legislature knows damn well that the voters are fed up with politicians and judges. Term limits for politicians and age limits for judges are popular with voters from both parties and independents. The question does not tell voters that the current retirement age for judges is 70. Many voters will assume that no current age limit exists. Many voters will think that they are doing their part to help get rid of these corrupt judges earlier. Instead, with a yes vote, they will be voting to keep them in place 5 years longer.

    The ballot question was originally meant to be voted on during the primaries. And indeed it was printed on the ballots. Here was the wording of the question on the April ballot:

    “Shall the Pennsylvania Constitution be amended to require that justices of the Supreme Court, judges and justices of the peace (known as magisterial district judges) be retired on the last day of the calendar year in which they attain the age of 75 years, instead of the current requirement that they be retired on the last day of the calendar year in which they attain the age of 70?”

    When lawmakers got word that the question was doomed to be defeated in the primary, the legislature quickly moved to ask the Pennsylvania Secretary of State to ignore the primary results for this question and move the question (after they conveniently remove any reference of the current age limit of 70) to the general election. So, the voters did vote on the question in the primary and as these lawmakers feared, it rightfully went down in defeat. But, the legislature successfully moved to have the results on this question voided so that they could re-word it to get the result that they want. Thus, now we have a blatantly deceptive ballot question that has a very good chance of passing next week.

    The litigation surrounding this deceptive maneuver will cost taxpayers over $900,000. before the court challenges to this awful ballot question is finished. Also, the state (taxpayers) spent $1.3 million advertising the constitutional amendments for the April primary. Was that money well spent? They already spent the money advertising the question and then the voters voted it down. So, they are spending a million more of your dollars in order to “educate” the masses again. They are hoping that this time the vote goes in their favor.

    Franklin & Marshall University recently polled registered voters on the wording of the ballot question. They polled them on the old language (from the primary) vs. the new wording which will be on the general election ballot.

    The old language from the April primary ballot: 45% approved of moving the retirement age from 70 to 75.

    The new language from the general election ballot: 64% approved of a retirement age of 75.

    Updated post from just AFTER the election:

    Unfortunately, it looks like the deceptive ballot access question concerning the retirement age of judges will pass in PA. With 99% reporting the totals are 50.9% YES 49.1% NO. So, the retirement age for judges will likely be raised from age 70 to 75 in PA. Many of the “drain the swamp” lawmakers that claim to want to shake up the political elites are the ones that moved to change the language of the question and deceive voters.

  8. Michael, I share your emotions about deceptive language. On the other hand, it is clear to me that forcing judges to retire when they are 70 is not good public policy. I am in the 70-75 age zone myself and I wouldn’t like it if someone told me I must retire just because of my age. There are hundreds of judges around the U.S. doing good work who are over age 70. One might even consider age to be a desirable quality in a judge, because age rationally correlates to experience and a wealth of knowledge.

    The judge who struck down the South Dakota ballot access law for minor parties yesterday was born in 1940.

  9. I am not against judges over 70. I agree that plenty of good judges are over 70, 75 or above. My complaint is with the process and the deception. My reference to term limits (age limit for judges) is because that is how the legislature was selling it to voters, which is generally popular in PA due to the corruption that voters come to expect in PA. I would be perfectly fine with a question that used clear and honest language and I fundamentally do not support forced retirement at the age of 70. Any bitter taste that you detect has to do with distrust in the motives of the legislature. Process is extremely important to me. I opposed the casino law as well because of the deceptive process, while I am generally fine with the right to gamble. I opposed the pay raise as well because of process and deception, not because of the pay, which was low for lawmakers living in Philadelphia, the philly suburbs and some other locations across the state.

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