An attorney for state legislative leaders asked a Commonwealth Court judge Wednesday to postpone all action on a lawsuit seeking to void Pennsylvania's current congressional district map.

The leaders' main argument is that the state court should wait for a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on a similar redistricting case out of the state of Wisconsin.

"What we're asking you to do is to get this case right, and not rush it," said Jason Torchinsky, an attorney representing Senate President Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson County, and House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny County.

Torchinsky noted the Supreme Court's ruling, if it found that there is no identifiable legal standard that can be used to define extreme partisan gerrymandering, could make the Pennsylvania case moot.

In the Wisconsin case, a panel of three federal judges ruled 2 to 1 that Wisconsin's leaders went too far in using a secretive process for drawing the state legislative maps after the 2010 Census.

The lower court concluded that the districting plans were drawn to eliminate swing districts and create ones favorable to Republicans.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the Wisconsin case Tuesday.

In Pennsylvania, plaintiffs are asking the state court to declare the 2011 Congressional map unconstitutional, halt its use in future congressional elections and order the creation of new maps.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs countered Wednesday that there are enough factual and legal differences between the two cases that the state case should be permitted to proceed.

Namely, attorney David Gersch argued, counts in the Pennsylvania suit that relate to freedom of speech and expression can't be made moot by the U.S. Supremes because the state constitution has broader protections in that area.

The free speech argument here ties to a claim that certain voters in Pennsylvania have been been retaliated against specifically because of their historical voting patterns.

The Pennsylvania suit has been brought by the League of Women Voters and individual voters from each of the state's 18 congressional districts.

State legislative and congressional districts are redrawn every 10 years, following the most-recent U.S. census. The next redraw here is scheduled to take place in 2021.

Time is of the essence for the plaintiffs, because they hope to effect a change in the state's maps in time for the 2018 election cycle, which actually starts next winter with the circulation of nominating petititions for party primaries.

Senior Judge Dan Pellegrini, who did not rule Wednesday, expressed skepticism that the case could proceed that quickly, especially if one of the parties appealed the Commonwealth Court decision to the state Supreme Court.

Plaintiffs, however, countered there is no perfect time to fight gerrymandering in world of two-year election cycles, and with two more elections scheduled under the current maps, it's a journey worth starting now.

"The voters of Pennsylvania have the right to elect congressional representatives form a map that is fair," said Mimi McKenzie, legal director of the Philadelphia-based Public Interest Law Center and a co-counsel in the case.

"I don't think any election should ever be considered a throw-away."

In a similarity with the Wisconsin case, the Pennsylvania suit relies in part on new social science measurements that try to place objective measurements on partisan gerrymandering.

By one such tool known as the "efficiency gap," which basically tries to measure competitiveness in districts by comparing single district election margins throughout the state, Pennsylvania's congressional seats are said to be the most-gerrymandered in the nation.

The 2011 Pennsylvania map, drawn by a Republican-controlled General Assembly and signed into law by Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, has resulted in a congressional delegation made up of 13 Republicans and five Democrats.

But for the gerrymandering, the efficiency gap study suggests, the partisan split here would be 10 Republicans and eight Democrats.

Another measure, the mean-median gap, compares the gap between the average Democratic vote share statewide with the vote share in the median district. The larger the gap between those two, the more likely the districts have been manipulated to favor Republicans.

In 2012, the mean Democratic vote share statewide was nearly 50.5 percent compared to the median vote share of 42.8 percent. That resulted in a mean-median gap of 7.7 percent, the fifth largest nationwide in that election.

The Commonwealth Court case is part of a two-pronged push for redistricting reform in Pennsylvania ahead of the next U.S. Census.

Legislation in the state House and Senate would throw out the current system that leaves much of the work to lawmakers in favor of a commission designed to reduce the influence of party leaders.

That effort will require an amendment to the state constitution, a lengthy process that involves passing the Legislature in two separate sessions prior to a voter referendum.