Pennsylvania Republicans just won't give up in their fight to keep on gerrymandering, and their latest actions can only be described as legislating by ambush. The GOP took a bill that would create an independent redistricting commission, which legislative leaders had blocked from getting a vote even though a bipartisan majority of state House members supported it, and replaced it—without warning or debate—with an amendment that would give Republican legislators complete control over redistricting.
This power grab would create a six-member redistricting commission made up of members appointed by the legislature. Under this proposal, a party holding a majority in both chambers—as the GOP does now—would be able to select four of the panel’s members. The amendment does specify that five votes are needed to pass a map, but in the event of a deadlock, the legislature itself can pass the commission’s draft maps.
The commission therefore is little more than a fig leaf, but the real kicker is this: The amendment would remove the governor from the redistricting process entirely, denying him or her the opportunity to veto any maps. This is an obvious effort to target Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, who’s favored to win re-election this fall and would thus be in a position to block any future GOP gerrymanders if Republicans keep control of the legislature in 2021—which they may very well do, thanks to their existing ill-gotten gerrymanders.
And of course, they’re fighting to retain their authority of those maps as well, since the amendment similarly usurps control over legislative redistricting from the state’s existing bipartisan commission. That commission has an even number of Democrats and Republicans, while the state Supreme Court appoints a tiebreaker when the parties inevitably can't agree on a fifth member.
When Republicans controlled the high court after both the 2000 and 2010 censuses, the justices chose a tiebreaking member who signed off on the GOP’s preferred gerrymanders. But now the court is home to an anti-gerrymandering Democratic majority that’s poised to remain in place through at least 2022, so Republicans have decided the court should no longer play any role.
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Fortunately, there’s at least one serious obstacle ahead for the GOP. Republican legislators would have to pass this amendment both this year and again after the 2018 elections, though they should be able to do so—again, thanks to their current gerrymandered maps. However, the amendment would then have to win the approval of voters in a referendum, giving opponents a chance to ultimately defeat it at the ballot box.
Still, this maneuver is a major setback for a redistricting reform effort that had been gathering steam. Indeed, after a Republican committee chair had continually kept his committee from voting on the genuine reform proposal that Republicans have now gutted, a Democratic legislator announced that he intended to use a procedural maneuver force a vote on the bottled-up bill. Rather than allow such a vote, the GOP instead eviscerated the measure and, in a bitterly ironic twist, used its husk to advance their own sham proposal.
It's unclear just how far Republicans are willing to push this power grab, since it has yet to proceed to a vote before the full House. And of course, even if it passes, it could end up backfiring if the GOP nevertheless loses its majorities by 2020. However, nothing would be surprising from a party that has called for impeaching judges simply for striking down a partisan gerrymander and replacing it with a fair map.