On January 26, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, a Democrat, vetoed the bill that draws new U.S. House district boundaries. Thus Pennsylvania, like so many other populous states this year, will have trouble settling redistricting in time for its scheduled primary, which is in May. See this story.
Even worse, the districts won’t be drawn in time for petitioning to start.
In 1932, many states chose their Representatives at-large because they were unable to complete their redistricting in time for the election.
If the district lines are not figured out when the petitioning is supposed to start, will they postpone the petitioning period?
Maybe. There is no precedent for that question in Pennsylvania. Traditionally Pennsylvania hasn’t had late redistricting.
Maybe an emergency rule that petitions for Congress don’t have to be from voters in the district, is needed.
@WZ,
Historically, ever since in 1872, Congress required election by district they made provisions for holding elections in case a state failed to redistrict. These were always included in the apportionment bill. Congress failed to reapportion after the 1920 Census. Before the 1930 Census President Hoover got Congress to pass a bill that provided for automatic apportionment if Congress failed to act. But they did include the transitional provisions. Legally speaking, there was no requirement to elect by districts. This was not recognized, but five states that had lost representatives followed the 1910 law which was to elect all representatives at large. If you have more districts than representatives, the only other choice would be to play musical chairs.
If a state gained representatives the extra representatives would be elected at large.
If the number of representatives and districts were equal, the existing districts would be used until redistricting occured – and there was no imperative that actually happen.
When the apportionment provisions were made permanent at the time of the 1940 Census, the transitional provisions were reinstated, and occassionally a state would elect at large.
After Wesberry v Sanders, districts in almost all states were being challenged. Federal district court judges were reluctant to draw districts, so they were threatening to order at-large election which inherently comply with the constitutional requirement that representatives be elected by the people of a state.
Congress panicked and required that representatives be elected by district, but they goobered and didn’t repeal the old law, but it was generally assumed it was null.
But the SCOTUS decided that it is still viable if districts were not drawn by the legislature or state courts or federal courts. But it would take a massive failure in Pennsylvania or anywhere else for this to happen.
It would have been better if the courts never got involved in drawing districts. If the districts were unconstitutional, just enjoin the election entirely. This would get the legislature’s intention. Instead you have cases where the courts are being used as weapons.
Maybe courts should just order at-large elections if districts get challenged. That might compel legislatures to come up with districts that are more timely and acceptable.