PA’s new Congressional Districts — we will have them one week from today, before close of business on Monday, Feb. 19.
The recent PA state Supreme Court decision established some deadlines. It gave the legislature until Feb 9 to redistrict the state’s Congressional Districts. The two Republican leaders of the state Senate and House sent a plan to the Governor before the deadline, but it had not passed the legislature so what they sent is non-compliant with the Court’s order. The Governor has until Feb 15 to submit a redistricting plan to the Court. The Governor does not have the legal authority to craft his own plan. The Court’s order assumed the legislature would send the Governor a properly passed plan, which the Governor could either sign or veto. Governor Wolf is expected to inform the Court on or before the Feb 15 deadline that he is unable to submit a compliant plan to the Court (because the legislature failed to submit a properly passed plan to him).
The Court ordered the PA Department of State to be prepared to implement an election schedule based on a new Congressional districting plan that will be “available by February 19, 2018”, still using the regular May 15, 2018 primary election date.
The Court had engaged its own redistricting expert, and one assumes that expert will submit one or more redistricting plans to the Court for its consideration in time for the Court to issue a compliant Congressional districting plan by close of business on February 19. The plan will have all 9,163 Pennsylvania voting precincts (called “Divisions” in Philadelphia) allocated to the new Congressional Districts.
By this time in one week, we can assume we will have a Supreme Court ordered Congressional districting plan for the May 15, 2018 party primaries and November 2018 general election.