Pennsylvania lawmakers appeal map decision to Supreme Court

Two Republican lawmakers from Pennsylvania filed an emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday night to block a new congressional district map drawn by the state’s highest court. The new map, issued after the state Supreme Court ruled the previous one unconstitutional, likely would give Democrats an advantage in this year’s elections for the U.S. House of Representatives. Justice Samuel Alito, who handles emergency requests from Pennsylvania and other states under the jurisdiction of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, could issue a decision on his own or refer the case to the full court. Alito turned down two previous requests by the same lawmakers challenging earlier decisions in the long-running case. In January, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court gave the state’s Republican-controlled legislature two weeks to come up with a new congressional district map that Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, could support. When they failed, the court issued its own map. In a sign of the case’s importance to national politics, President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Tuesday to urge Republicans to keep fighting for their version of the map: “Your Original was correct! Don’t let the Dems take elections away from you so that they can raise taxes & waste money!”