Before Monday’s announcement, state Republican leaders had vowed to challenge the court’s map.
State Rep. Brian Ellis of Butler, who represent’s Pennsylvania’s 11th District, visited WISR for an interview early Monday afternoon before the court released its new map.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Ellis said Monday. “We are looking at a legitimate constitutional crisis here in Pennsylvania because of this.”
Rep. Ellis, a Republican, says the power to redistrict is granted solely to the Legislature by the state’s constitution.
“Nowhere in the Pennsylvania Constitution or the U.S. Constitution does it even mention the ability for a court to draw the map,” he said. “It is a legislative process. We voted on this map…passed it with two-thirds of the house vote, which you can’t do with just Republicans, so it was a bipartisan vote and it stood for six years before it was challenged.”
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that the state’s current congressional map was unconstitutional because it was drawn to favor Republicans.
