Update, February 5th: Justice Alito denied the Pennsylvania GOP legislators’ motion for a stay. He did so without referring the matter to the full Supreme Court. Justice Alito is one of the three most conservative members of the court, and a near-guaranteed vote against restrictions on partisan gerrymandering…based on the U.S. Constitution. I would call his ruling today a clear signal of what he thought of this desperate Hail Mary pass.

This doesn’t have any bearing on the federal cases in Wisconsin, Maryland, or North Carolina. But it does mean that Pennsylvania will have new Congressional maps within 1-2 weeks.

Update, January 26th: The Commonwealth Court has announced the details of the redistricting, including which definitions of compactness to use. They’ve also retained veteran redistricter Nathaniel Persily in case the legislative process does not produce an acceptable map.

Just in – Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court has overturned that state’s Congressional map as a partisan gerrymander. Maps are ordered to be redrawn there in time for this year’s November election (and the primary in May).

The order was 5-2, with the court’s two Republican appointees in the minority. However, even they were soft no’s. One of them, Chief Justice Saylor, wants to wait to see how Gill v. Whitford, the federal Wisconsin case, turns out. The other, Justice Mundy, says it is not clear which provision of the Commonwealth Constitution applies here. A third justice, Democrat-appointed Justice Baer, raised concerns that subsequent litigation will compress this year’s election calendar too much.

Of particular note, the court order says to redistrict by compactness, equal population, and preserving towns/counties/cities. However, no reference to communities of interest, which is probably good because it closes a loophole that partisans would otherwise try to exploit.

This decision is huge because it does not depend on the U.S. Constitution. Instead, it is based on the Commonwealth Constitution of Pennsylvania, which has First/Fourteenth-Amendment-like protections – but is not subject to appeal to the Supreme Court. I think intervention by the Supreme Court would occur only if the decision expressly contradicted federal law. Even if Gill were to win over Whitford in the Wisconsin case, a decision there would probably still not find a right to gerrymander in the U.S. Constitution. That said, Rick Hasen has described a possible Hail Mary strategy for the state of Pennsylvania. None of this will stop the initial appeals and litigation…but it sure seems like Pennsylvania just took a big step toward fairer districting for this cycle (2018 and 2020). Considering that Pennsylvania is the site of the (in)famous Vieth v. Jubelirer decision, it would be poetic justice.

What does this mean for this year? According to the order, the special election in the 18th Congressional District should proceed as planned, in March. That makes sense, since otherwise, dependent on the new boundaries, some Pennsylvanians would have two members of Congress and others would have none. After that, once the map is redrawn, political conditions in 2018 are likely to resemble 2012 for Democrats, or better. Neutral districting then would have led to 8-9 D seats. The actual result was 13 R, 5 D (and has been since then). Therefore today’s decision, implemented via neutral redistricting principles, might reasonably mean a 3 or 4-seat gain for Democrats.