Holder and Obama playing 'impeach Trump' in Pennsylvania

Former president Obama and attorney general Eric Holder are agitating again. After witnessing the loss of their presidential candidate and the flickering remains of the faux "Russia collusion" case, they are not deterred. Rather than politely passing the torch, they are attempting to torch our entire election process in their obsessive attempt to destroy Trump's presidency. During Obama's reign, we witnessed his flagrant flouting of United States laws, his weaponization of federal bureaucracies, his ham-handed interference in local criminal activities, and his illegal meddling in foreign elections – Egypt and Israel being the more egregious examples. Now he is back on the political scene, shrouded in the shadows, conniving, advising, and fundraising for the recently founded National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC). The NDRC's stated goal is to end gerrymandering after the elections in 2020. Year 2020 is an obvious and legal target. Every ten years, after the national census is completed, congressional delegates and districts are reconfigured, added, and eliminated, based upon the population shifts in each state. In Pennsylvania, the state legislature is empowered to implement redistricting, and these functions are carried out in a timely and orderly manner.

Not content to wait until 2020, however, the NDRC hatched a scheme to wrest power away from key state legislatures. Pennsylvania has proven to be a prime target. Here's why. The Pennsylvania Legislature is controlled by Republicans who created the district maps, as authorized, after the 2010 census and elections. (It is essential to note that each party in power draws district maps to its advantage.) The legislature is still controlled by Republicans, but Pennsylvania's governor is a Democrat: Tom Wolf. Wolf went along with the districts until Pennsylvania's Supreme Court suddenly became controlled, after the last elections, by Democrat justices. When the governor and Legislature could not agree on a new map, the Democrats brought an "illegal gerrymandering" case through Pennsylvania's judicial system, knowing that the Democrat-controlled Supreme Court was predetermined to support their case. Accusing the Republicans of being avaricious in their redistricting, the new Democrat-devised map is equally slanted. The redrawn map confusedly renumbers districts; eliminates potentially four Republican seats, thereby abolishing some Republican "incumbency advantages"; and makes a mockery of the Democrats' professed motive of district neutrality. Exacerbating the chaos is the Democrats' pernicious timing. Their new map dropped just before parties were endorsing candidates for the May 15, 2018 primary. As a result, all candidates, excluding congressional candidates, have been endorsed and their petitions circulating. In practical terms, that translates into needless expenditures of time and money, where committees will be forced to duplicate the nomination and endorsement process. While "illegal gerrymandering" is the tagline for obliterating Pennsylvania's legislative landscape before the 2020 Census, the endgame is President Trump's destruction. Implementing a presidential impeachment is a power that resides solely in the House of Representatives. Currently, not that many Democrat representatives have called for Trump's impeachment, though the subject is bruited about frequently. Should Democrats take control of the House of Representatives in the next election, watch the impeachment games begin. Ms. Lechter is a practicing attorney in Philadelphia and an endorsed candidate for Pennsylvania's Republican State Committee.