Today the Pennsylvania Supreme Court announced they’ve picked a congressional map by a group of Democratic-aligned voters who sued last year in an effort to get the court involved.
Crispin Havener looks at the big impacts it will have on our local congressional representation.
In a 4-3 decision Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court has broken a partisan deadlock over a new map of congressional districts by selecting new boundaries, which left the high couet to decide which map to pick as Pennsylvania is losing a congressional seat based on stagnant population growth.
This map doesn’t make any big changes on the whole and is likely to keep the state even in terms of how many Republicans and Democrats will make up the Pennsylvania.
Per the political analysis site five-thirty-eight the map creates eight Republican-leaning districts, six Democratic-leaning districts, and three closely divided districts. Right now, it’s a 9-9 split.
But who will represent whom in our area does see some pretty significant changes.
The biggest one is up North where Glenn Thompson’s 15th district and Fred Keller’s 12th district have been lumped together.
That means the two Republican incumbents will have to battle each other in the 15th district primary and one of them will be out of a job.
Cambria County will now be entirely represented by the 13th district held by Rep. John Joyce.
Previously, only Johnstown and its West Hills suburbs were in the 13th.
The rest by Thompson’s 15th. And while Conemaugh Township remains in the 13th, the rest of Somerset County will now be represented in the 14th district held by Rep. Guy Reschenthaler.
As part of their rulings Today, the State Supreme Court will now allow congressional and statewide candidates to start collecting signatures to get on the primary ballot starting Friday and running through March 15th.
The primary election is still set to be held on May 17 but candidate petitions for state house and senate seats are suspended, pending legal arguments over those maps.
Meanwhile, a group of Republicans filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court this week asking for a federal judge to block the state court from implementing a map. That case is ongoing.
