{"id":347925,"date":"2018-02-12T14:38:51","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T13:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/pennsylvania-races-to-redraw-gerrymandered-congressional-maps\/"},"modified":"2018-02-12T14:38:51","modified_gmt":"2018-02-12T13:38:51","slug":"pennsylvania-races-to-redraw-gerrymandered-congressional-maps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/pennsylvania-races-to-redraw-gerrymandered-congressional-maps\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania Races to Redraw Gerrymandered Congressional Maps"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pennsylvania mapmakers are sharpening their pencils this week, because the state is under an extremely tight deadline to redraw gerrymandered electoral districts to meet a court-mandated deadline. It’s a win for voting rights<\/a> in 2018, and the GOP is not happy about it.<\/p>\n

The story starts in 2011, when the Pennsylvania legislature drew up a new district map. Redistricting<\/a> happens frequently across the US, reflecting changing populations. The process is designed to promote equally proportionate representation — at least in theory.<\/p>\n

But the map the legislature produced<\/a> was extremely partisan and slanted in favor of Republicans, according to some. The\u00a0New York Times<\/a>\u00a0describes the state as “one of the most gerrymandered states in the nation,” and it’s easy to see why, since the state map looks like an explosion at a pretzel factory that went horribly wrong.<\/p>\n

So people sued, arguing that the map should be redrawn. And through litigation, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed: The legislature was ordered to redraw the map<\/a>. Republicans took it to the Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case<\/a>, allowing the court ruling to stand.<\/p>\n

Here’s where things get really bananas: The state needs to have a restricting map settled and signed by the governor by February 15, or the court will step in and draw one.<\/p>\n

The legislature is controlled by Republicans, but the state’s governor is Democratic, so Pennsylvania may see some heated debates in the next few days as both sides jostle for positions — Democrats, after all, have a lot at stake as they fight to regain control<\/a> of the House, and they’re eager to see districts that favor their interests.<\/p>\n

If you’re looking at that deadline and counting off on your fingers, so are state officials. Republicans are furious at the ruling,\u00a0and they say the\u00a0changes could “cause chaos” at the upcoming midterms. And this, some might argue, is exactly the point: Fair congressional districts\u00a0could radically change Pennsylvania’s representation in Congress,…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pennsylvania mapmakers are sharpening their pencils this week, because the state is under an extremely tight deadline to redraw gerrymandered electoral districts to meet a court-mandated deadline. It’s a win for voting rights in 2018, and the GOP is not happy about it. The story starts in 2011, when the Pennsylvania legislature drew up a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-347925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}