A victory in Pennsylvania

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Monday struck down the boundaries of the state’s 18 congressional districts, saying they violate the state constitution and granting a major victory to a group of Democratic voters who argued the districts were unconstitutionally gerrymandered to benefit Republicans.

The Democratic-controlled court issued a brief order giving the Republican-controlled Legislature until Feb. 9 to pass a replacement and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf until Feb. 15 to submit it to the court. Otherwise, the justices said they will adopt a plan in an effort to keep the May 15 primary election on track.

  WaPo

Recently, North Carolina passed the same kind of law, but the Supreme Court blocked it. We'll see if Pennsylvania Republicans also go to the Supreme Court, and, why wouldn't they, considering the North Carolina case?

The U.S. Supreme Court also is weighing whether redistricting can be so partisan that it violates the U.S. Constitution, in cases from Maryland and Wisconsin. The high court has never struck down an electoral map as a partisan gerrymander.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

And, because the state supreme court based its ruling on the state constitution, any attempt by Pennsylvania Republicans to appeal this ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court for the kind of stay that SCOTUS imposed on the North Carolina gerrymandering case last week is probably foreclosed.

  Charles P Pierce

Assuming Charlie's right (I certainly don't know), that's good news. But I would think it wouldn't stop the Penn GOP from appealing to the Supreme Court, putting a hold on the redistricting until such time as the Court got the case and turned it down.