On December 31, 2021, Common Cause Pennsylvania’s Executive Director Khalif Ali se unió a los demandantes de todo el estado. al presentar una Solicitud de intervención in the ongoing congressional redistricting litigation currently before the Commonwealth Court. Plaintiffs were represented by the Public Interest Law Center and Dechert, LLP.  The litigation generally called on the Court to take over the congressional mapmaking process if the General Assembly and Pennsylvania Governor were unable to agree on a map. Additionally, Khalif and the other plaintiffs argued that the court should ensure that any map follows the redistricting criteria laid out in Liga de Mujeres Votantes de Pensilvania contra la Commonwealth incluyendo la protección de las comunidades de interés, que las consideraciones partidistas, incluidos los intentos de beneficiar a cualquier titular o candidato, no deben prevalecer sobre los criterios de la LWVPA, y que la Corte debe utilizar datos ajustados para contar a las personas encarceladas en sus hogares, no en sus celdas.

Although the Court denied the request to intervene, we participated as amicus and submitted a community-driven map that used adjusted data. You can see the map and brief here.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania took jurisdiction over the case and required Judge McCullough of the Commonwealth Court to issue a report by February 7, 2022. Judge McCullough’s report (read it here) recommended that the Supreme Court adopt the Republican Caucuses map (HB 2146), which was passed on a party line vote through both chambers, but vetoed by Governor Wolf.

The Supreme Court permitted all parties and amici to submit briefs and exceptions to Judge McCullough’s report. You can read ours here. We argue that Judge McCullough made several mistakes, including giving unwarranted deference to the Pennsylvania legislature, prioritizing some splits while ignoring others, and failing to acknowledge the importance of counting incarcerated people at their homes not their cells.

PA Supreme Court Opinion

On March 9, 2022, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania released their opinions (dissents and concurrences) regarding the case and selected a new voting map to take effect. While our proposed map was not selected, the final map holds most of the state’s communities of interest together, including keeping the Capitol Region whole and not splitting the Hazelton/Wilkes-Barre/Scranton region.

Read the Majority Opinion Read Our Statement