Pennsylvania Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati informed the Pennsylvania Supreme Court he won't comply with a court order to provide voter records and mapmaking material in a partisan gerrymandering case.

The nation's highest court should stay out of the state fight, they said, because the U.S. Supreme Court for almost 150 years has held that state supreme courts are the final arbiters of state law.

By a 5-to-2 vote on party lines, the justices last month found the Republican-crafted 2011 congressional map violates the state constitution.

Pennsylvania's Congressional map, the product of a Republican "trifecta" in state government after the 2010 elections, has been rated by some political science measures as the most gerrymandered in the nation.

Republicans must once again approve a new map.

Data such as voter registration, voter history, geographic boundaries and racial makeups of communities may be factored into the proposed revisions to the map.

Time is critical in the case. If that schedule is not met, the court said it would draw its own map based on the evidence presented in the case. T here's a theory that conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court want to find a way to prevent states from interfering with Republican gerrymandering.

The court threw out the Republican-drawn map last week, ruling that districts "clearly, plainly and palpably" violate the state's constitution and ordering that the map be redrawn in the next three weeks. Such a request - to review a state court interpretation of state law - normally would be a long shot. In a letter to the court, Scarnati's attorneys argued that the Supreme Court's order was unconstitutional, in a way that acted to "usurp the General Assembly's constitutionally delegated role of drafting Pennsylvania's congressional districting plan".

The deadline to file paperwork to run in primaries for the state's congressional seats is March 6. Though the letter claims that "the General Assembly is now advancing bills aimed at creating an alternative map", the letter also states that "Senator Scarnati will not be turning over any data identified in the Court's Orders". That order explained that the state's maps must be "composed of compact and contiguous territory" and must not "divide any county, city, incorporated town, borough, township, or ward, except where necessary to ensure equality of population".

It's not clear when the high court will rule on the matter.

In a court filing Friday, they accused Supreme Court Justice David Wecht of bias.