By Matthew DeSantis, Staff Writer
The approach of the midterm elections in November has brought the debate about state election laws back to the fore. The legislatures of each state must decide whether they wish to implement voter identification laws or move polling places around, but more importantly, they must all draw the border lines for each district. Whenever these border lines are drawn specifically to advantage one political party over another, the practice is referred to as gerrymandering. The exact criteria that constitutes gerrymandering varies by the laws that govern the process of drawing those borders in each state.
The two most popular methods of gerrymandering are ‘packing,’ or the concentration of an opposing group into one district, and ‘cracking,’ or the spreading of an opposing group into many districts. Both of these methods serve to decrease the voting power of that group. In a packed districting scheme, the party will only be able to win in a small amount of districts while their influence in others is decreased, while in a cracked scheme, the influence of the opposing party in all of the districts will be negligible and attenuated. Through this practice, the party in power will stay in power, and those who oppose that party will achieve less of an effect through their vote.
The Pennsylvanian process of drawing boundary lines is an inherently political process. The state legislature creates a commission to draw a proposal map and the body of the legislature votes on whether to adopt that map.[1] The commission consists of the majority and minority leaders of both houses of the state Congress, as well as a fifth party that the four members will vote on.[2] When the four cannot agree upon a fifth member – a common situation – the Pennsylvania Supreme Court chooses the fifth member of the commission.[3] However, this member may also have questionable neutrality because the election of Supreme Court justices is a partisan action, with each justice running with a party nomination.[4] This system is open for potential abuse because the party with more votes will choose the map that more heavily favors their own party.
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania can also become involved in the process after a map has been adopted. Directly after a map is adopted, there is a period time where anyone can issue challenges or objections.[5] The commission then has time to correct the deficiency, subject to review by the Supreme Court. If the Court finds the amended map unsatisfactory, they have the ability to draw their own boundaries that have to be adopted.
Currently, the Republican Party holds the majority in the Pennsylvania legislature and proposed a boundary map that would be effective in the midterm elections. This first map was considered unconstitutionally gerrymandered, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered the redrawing of a new, fairer map.[[6] This map also failed to pass muster, and the Court decided to draw maps that would fit the constitutional criteria.[7]
This decision has been met with backlash from Republicans, who accuse the Court of judicial overreach. Some have gone as far as to threaten impeachment proceedings against the justices that comprise the court.[8]
This threat arguably fails at two points. First, impeachment requires that the justice act criminally or overextend their power.[9] In drawing these maps and ordering their adoption, the justices likely acted entirely within both the spirit and letter of the law, which are not impeachable offenses.
Secondly, and more practically, in the case of impeachment, the governor is empowered to choose their replacements. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf is a Democrat and has already vetoed the map the Republicans submitted.[10] In light of this, it is highly unlikely that any replacement justices would be any more conservative or sympathetic to Republicans than the current ones, or even that they would be different justices. Appeals by the Pennsylvania Republican party to federal district courts and the Supreme Court of the United States have been refused, so the map is here to stay.
Sources
[1] https://ballotpedia.org/State-by-state_redistricting_procedures
[2] Pa. Const. Art. II Sec. XVII
[3] Id.
[4] Id. at Art. V Sec. XIII
[5] Id. at Art. II Sec. XVII
[6] https://www.npr.org/2018/02/19/586668315/court-decides-pennsylvania-voting-map
[7] Id.
[8] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/03/05/are-recent-calls-to-impeach-pennsylvania-judges-unusual-not-so-much/?utm_term=.87df512c53de
[9] Pa. Const. Art. VI
[10] http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/gov-wolf-rejects-a-new-gop-gerrymandered-map-for-pa.html
