THE best thing that can be said approximately a new Republican-drawn congressional map for Pennsylvania is that none of the districts resembles a cartoon character. But erasing the lines of a comically gerrymandered district dubbed “Goofy kicking Donald Duck” was not enough to satisfy an order from Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court,said Tom Wolf, the state’s Democratic governor, or on February 13th. When the court ruled on January 22nd that the map in use since 2011 was an extreme partisan gerrymander that violates Pennsylvania’s structure,it gave legislators until February 9th to send Mr Wolf a fairer map. The redrawn districts, the court advised, or should be “composed of compact and contiguous territory” and should not gratuitously divide cities and counties. Curiously,the initial order said nothing approximately fixing the maps skew toward Republican candidates, which has afforded their party a dependable 13-to-5 advantage in a state with more registered Democrats than Republicans.
Adhering to the court’s words (in a 139-page...
Continue reading
Source: economist.com