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Groton Daily Independent
Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 223 ~ 34 of 52
halt to litigation over the 2011 map they took leading roles in creating.
In November, Alito turned down a request for a stay of a federal lawsuit, a case that Turzai and Scarnati
won in January.
On Feb. 5, Alito rejected a request from Turzai and Scarnati to halt a Jan. 22 order from the state Su-
preme Court that gave the Republican leaders two weeks to propose a map that would be supported by Wolf and until last week to suggest a new map to the court.
Turzai and Scarnati argued that the state’s high court gave them scant time to propose their own map after throwing out the 2011 version, ensuring “that its desired plan to draft the new map would be suc- cessful.” As evidence of a “preordained plan,” they cited comments critical of gerrymandering made by Justice David Wecht during his 2015 campaign for the court.
“The court’s process was entirely closed,” they told Alito. “It did not allow the parties the opportunity to provide any comment to the proposed map, inquire on why certain subdivisions were split and whether it was to meet population equality, or further evaluate whether partisan intent played any role in the drafting.”
As a sign of the litigation’s potential impact on national politics, President Donald Trump on Tuesday urged Republicans to press their challenge of the map to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Your Original was correct! Don’t let the Dems take elections away from you so that they can raise taxes & waste money!” Trump tweeted.
The ve Democrats on the state Supreme Court sided with Democratic voters who challenged the map, although one of the Democratic justices, Max Baer, has pointedly opposed the compressed timetable.
Republicans who controlled the Legislature and the governor’s of ce after the 2010 census crafted the now-invalidated map to help elect Republicans. They succeeded in that aim: Republicans won 13 of 18 seats in three straight elections even though Pennsylvania’s registered Democratic voters outnumber Republicans.
An analysis conducted through PlanScore.org concluded the court’s redrawn map eliminates “much of the partisan skew” favoring Republicans on the old GOP-drawn map, but not all of it.
Congressional candidates have from Feb. 27 to March 20 to collect and submit enough signatures to get on the ballot, and the new maps have candidates and would-be candidates scrambling to decide whether to jump in. Five incumbents are not seeking another term and a sixth has resigned, an unusually large number of openings.
Angry teens swarm into Florida Capitol; demand new gun laws By BRENDAN FARRINGTON, GARY FINEOUT and TAMARA LUSH, Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A week after a shooter slaughtered 17 people in a Florida high school, thousands of protesters, including many angry teenagers, swarmed into the state Capitol on Wednesday, calling for changes to gun laws, a ban on assault-type weapons and improved care for the mentally ill.
The normally staid Florida Statehouse lled with students, among them more than 100 survivors of the Feb. 14 attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, on the edge of the Everglades. They held signs, chanted slogans and burst into lawmakers’ of ces demanding to be heard.
The teens were welcomed into the gun-friendly halls of power, but the students’ top goal — a ban on assault-style ri es such as the weapon used in the massacre — was taken off the table a day earlier, al- though more limited measures are still possible.
Many protesters complained that lawmakers were not serious about reform, and they said they would oppose in future elections any legislator who accepts campaign contributions from the National Ri e As- sociation.
“We’ve spoke to only a few legislators and ... the most we’ve gotten out of them is, ‘We’ll keep you in our thoughts. You are so strong. You are so powerful,’” said Delaney Tarr, a senior at the high school. “We know what we want. We want gun reform. We want commonsense gun laws. ... We want change.”
She added: “We’ve had enough of thoughts and prayers. If you supported us, you would have made a change long ago. So this is to every lawmaker out there: No longer can you take money from the NRA. We are coming after you. We are coming after every single one of you, demanding that you take action.”