The bridge is that SCOTUS has recognized at least as recently as the AZ case that state legislatures or citizens through their representative voice (elections, referendum) can designate another body to perform the redistricting.
Minnesota is interesting because the courts in Minnesota have drawn the federal districts each round since the 60’s. Lawsuits mired every plan drawn at every apportionment since then. I don’t know if these were challenged on Elections clause grounds. Some state constitutions and state laws specifically identify groups outside the legislature to perform the redistricting, including a means to resolve dispute. But this isn’t the case in PA. PA has specific provisions to address the state legislative districts, and is silent on the congressional districts. Because it specifically carves out one, but is silent on the other, by way of statutory construction that not indicated should not follow the same procedure. Expressio unius est exclusio alterius
It’s true it’s not a slam dunk, far from it given the current situation. That’s my read of it anyways.
IANAL, but this seems pretty much cut and dried - the answer is No. It goes straight to SCOTUS, if it goes anywhere at all.
The reason: the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a party to this case. And Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution says that “In all Cases…in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction.”
Well, Barry Goldwater. I take him at his word, that his concern for Constitutional principle would not permit him to vote for the Voting Rights Act. That racial prejudice had no role in his decision, that he agonized over it but decided that the Federal government must not overrule “state’s rights”.
He did the wrong thing for good reason, but it was still wrong. In my own estimation, Americans of color had a legitimate cause for violent revolution, we can all be grateful that it did not come to that. But the urgency of their cause did not permit such legal nicety, you cannot vote to be permitted to vote, it is an absurdity.
Are there issues that do not rise to that level of urgency, wherein such potentially excessive action is not called for, is not justifiable? Well, of course, zoning laws do not demand zeal and fervor.
But voting does. It is the most bottom of bottom lines, it is the thing itself. If we are overzealous, and right an injustice by less than optimal means? Pencils have erasers. Nothing is set in stone, any and all can be corrected.
I recall Dick Gregory’s words from the dark times, in response to conservative criticism that he must be more patient.
“Get your foot off of my grandmother’s neck! Now, Goddammit, not one toe at a time!”
He was right. So was Barry Goldwater, but he was also very, very wrong.
To add to my earlier comments, it seems to me that Pennsylvania has a lopsided map for Republican state legislators because the state senate is about 68% red, and the state House is about 60% red, which seems at odds of how I think about Pennsylvania. That split is more or less what West Virginia’s legislature is, and more Republican than South Carolina’s.
I don’t have enough information on the state legislative districts to draw a conclusion. I did find this historyof the entire state offices breakdown by party, but there’s nothing there that’s informative on this question. I do believe the congressional districts were heavily gerrymandered.
There are, I imagine, imaginable cases of the legislature ignoring the rules of the Constitution as interpreted by SCOTUS whose solutions are not justiciable. And those in which the Executive branch cannot or should not act. But probably very few in which one, the other, or both of those branches in concert cannot or should not act.
The cases that are without question not ones remediable by letting the voters speak, and ones in which the other branches can and must act (solely or in concert) are the ones that unconstitutionally (with again the Judicial branch being the arbiter of what that is) altering the voting process, for obvious reasons.
Lopsidedness in representation despite overall even voter partisan split is not however de facto evidence of gerrymandering for partisan advantage. Many possible maps that follow the court defined neutral guidelines would preserve some degree of GOP advantage on “voter efficiency” just because of structural features of where voters are concentrated. Illustrating that is that the map the governor had proposed met the guideline for neutrality and still maintained a slight GOP voter efficiency advantage, more of one than the new map created by the court appointed expert maintains.
House Speaker Mike Turzai and Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati have again asked the SCOTUS to step in (3rd time in 4 months, according to the AP story).