Unlike the recent court decisions in North Carolina and Wisconsin, the ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirming that the Commonwealth’s Congressional Districts have been gerrymandered to benefit Republicans might actually mean something. While the other progressive “wins” were much like NFL touchdowns – fans couldn’t get too excited until all the replays were run (or, in these cases, the US Supreme Court offered its opinion) – the Pennsylvania ruling clearly states the Congressional Districts were illegally drawn in violation of the Pennsylvania Constitution. According to most legal experts, that should be the end of the discussion.
But expert opinion hasn’t stopped Republicans – the same primordial beings who are constantly clamoring for “states’ rights” over federal authority – to appeal to the SCOTUS. (As they’ve proven over and over, again, states’ rights only matter to conservatives if they’re making money from the absence of federal regulation.) So, we’ll still have to wait for the damn replays before we can claim a victory for truth, justice and the American Way.
In the meantime, we can find amusement in the comments of the people who drew the districts, and their minions, as they attempt to defend their actions. “What people don’t understand,” stated one Party operative, “is that redistricting is a political process.”
Red Flag Alert: When anyone associated with a political party begins a sentence with the words, “What people don’t understand…” they are acknowledging you have been deceived. And what he/she is actually saying is, “We turned this into a political process while you weren’t looking.”
The Chief-of-Staff to the Senate Pro-Tempore, who played a large roll in the district realignment, says “No matter how you cut this, (redistricting) is a federal court issue.” I’m sure he fully understood, as he was making the assertion, that different states draw their districts differently based on the provisions of their respective state constitutions. Pennsylvania is, in fact, one of only seven states that require the establishment of “politician commissions” comprised of party leaders to draw the lines.
Six states have independent commissions. Some states require super-majorities in their Legislatures before the new maps are approved. Some require simple majorities. And all the specific requirements are described in their state constitutions which are subject to the interpretation of their state supreme courts.
No matter how you cut this, the assertion is bullshit.
The de facto Republican dictatorship in Pennsylvania has turned the commonwealth from blue to red in only a decade. Although we have more registered Democrats than Republicans, we have somehow elected thirteen Republicans to fill the Congressional seats in our eighteen districts – and re-elected them again and again. We have one Republican Senator and one Democrat. We have a Democratic Governor. In any statewide race, the parties compete on relatively equal footing. But once you reach the Congressional District level in the political subdivisions drawn by the Republican leaders, the system elects Republicans seventy-two percent of the time.
And now the fact that our democracy has been compromised by the very people we elected to run it has been affirmed by the highest legal authority in Pennsylvania.
What politicians don’t understand? People are no longer looking the other way.
[Featured image by HBarrison via Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0]