Pennsylvania still hasn’t drawn new U.S. House districts. Although the legislature had passed a plan, the Governor had vetoed it. Therefore, the State Supreme Court appears to be getting ready to draw the districts.
On February 11, some Pennsylvania voters filed a federal lawsuit, arguing that it would violate the U.S. Constitution to let the State Supreme Court draw the districts. The Complaint argues that Article One gives state legislatures sole authority to write state election laws governing congressional elections, except that Congress can override state election laws affecting congressional elections. The Complaint also points to a very old federal law that says when a state loses a seat in the U.S. House, and fails to redistrict, all U.S. House members from that state should be elected at-large, until there is a redistricting plan.
The case is Toth v Chapman, m.d., 1:22cv-208. It is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Jennifer P. Wilson, a Trump appointee.
AZ SCOTUS case — gerrymander Comms = *law* makers replacing State Legislature.
failure of *law* folks >>> to courts as last resort.
PR or Civil WAR II ???
PR since 1840s – about 15 years before USA Civil WAR I in 1860-1861.
That would be a very interesting situation if they went to an at-large election for all US representatives.
The last time a state with more than 2 seats elected all its seats at-large was Alabama, which did so in 1962.
Imagine choosing the entire delegation from California at large.
Don’t give the Democrats any ideas.
Straight Party name/logo device in how many States ???
Republicans and libertarians would probably be better off if California elected at large. If anyone would benefit from gerrymandering in California it would probably be Democrats. And libertarians best bet to sneak anyone in would probably be at large also.
Az
I think it’s down to 6 now, iirc
The suit has very little likelihood of success. The Supreme Court will say that the US Constitution means “legislative process” when it applies to redistricting (manner) regulation. It will then defer to the state supreme court as to whether judicial redistricting can occur when the legislature fails its ministerial duty to redistrict.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court is hackish and will vote on party lines to do the redistricting.
The 1941 law that RW refers to established the rules for redistricting following a census. If a state has more districts than it has representatives, it would elect all representatives at large “until” it redistricting.
After ‘Wesberry v Sanders’ almost all states were determined to be malapportioned. Federal judges weren’t willing to draw districts and proposed to apply the 1941 law until the legislature drew new districts. Congress panicked and passed a new law eliminating the transitional provisions. But because they were Congress, they failed to repeal the old law.
But it was thought that this did not really matter. But then the SCOTUS ruled that the old law could still apply in the extraordinary situation in which neither the state or federal judiciary impose new districts.
It would be quite unlikely that a federal case would not be filed on equal protection grounds if Pennsylvania attempted to use the 2010 districts.
Birds Aren’t Real!