Source: https://paablog.com/p1-pa-gerrymandered-districts/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 00:08:15+00:00

Document:
The petition was filed in the Commonwealth Court’s original jurisdiction at Docket No. 261 MD 2017, and alleges Pennsylvania’s 2011 voting district design violates Democrat petitioners’ Pennsylvania constitutional rights to free expression and association and equal protection. Petitioners request the court block the state from using the 2011 map in future elections and enjoin the General Assembly from considering political data in designing future districts where such use would penalize or burden voters based on their political beliefs.
In this multipart series, Pennsylvania Appellate Adovocate will explore the facts and procedure of the lawsuit making its way through PA’s appellate courts, gerrymandering precedent of appellate courts, and the interplay with a similar battle over Wisconsin’s voting districts pending before the Supreme Court of the United States in Gill v. Whitford. PAA plans to live tweet the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court oral argument on October 3 and Commonwealth Court oral argument on October 4 regarding whether the court should stay the LWV v. PA proceeding pending the outcome of Gill v. Whitford – remember to follow us on Twitter to join the conversation.
The General Assembly redesigns voting districts every ten years. In the 2011 redistricting, the Republican controlled General Assembly drew new lines across the state that determine whose votes count where. The petition in LWV v. PA invokes the intrigue of a political conspiracy thriller when it alleges Republicans developed the 2011 plan under codename REDMAP with the intent to “solidify conservative policymaking at the state level and maintain a Republican stronghold in the U.S. House of Representatives for the next decade” behind closed doors, even going so far as to secretively introduce the bill as “an empty shell,” in which the actual descriptions of the congressional districts were not added until the morning of the day of the vote on the bill.
The Petition contends the 2011 the General Assembly designed voting districts with something other than population, convenience, political boundaries, or geography in mind. It alleges the crazy quilt was designed to “pack” and “crack” Democrat votes.
According to the petition, the redistricting achieved Republican’s intended results. For example, the petition walks through 2012 congressional election results, showing that where Democrats won (which was in a minority of districts), they won by an overwhelming majority, and that Republicans won by a much smaller majority but in a larger number of districts, resulting in a greater overall number of Republican congress people. Thus, the petition explains that even though the state-wide Democrat/Republican population split was approximately 50/50, Republicans ended up with more elected congress people because they won more districts due to cracking and packing.
While the petition contends that PA’s districts have been gerrymandered, redistricting presents unique evidentiary and separation of powers issues posing significant hurdles to the lawsuit. Join us again next week as we explore the concept of justiciability: whether courts can or should do anything about partisan gerrymandering.
SCOTUSblog coverage of Gill v. Whitford here.
** All quotes and images appearing in this blog are sourced from the Petition for Review in League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, et al. v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Docket No. 261 MD 2017 (Pa. Cmwlth. filed Jun. 15, 2017).

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.