PHILADELPHIA _ A panel of federal judges Wednesday effectively upheld Pennsylvania's oft-criticized congressional maps, declining to take up a novel challenge to Pennsylvania's maps that sought to have it declared unconstitutional because they were gerrymandered to favor the party in power.
In a 2-1 decision Wednesday, the 3rd Circuit Court judges said that the issue was not for them to decide and rejected the plaintiffs' legal arguments.
"The structural change plaintiffs seek must come from the political branches or from the political process itself, not the courts," said Chief Circuit Judge D. Brooks Smith.
The congressional, and legislative, boundaries in the state were drawn by the Republican-controlled legislature in 2011 after the 2010 Census.
Plaintiffs, led by a Democratic ward leader from Philadelphia, had hoped to use the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution to argue that any amount of partisanship in drawing state's congressional maps is illegal.
The majority disagreed.
In his dissent, District Judge Michael Baylson said the map should be redrawn, calling gerrymandering a "major public policy issue."
"Plaintiffs themselves described being alienated from the political process. ... In my opinion, gerrymandering will only cause voter turnout to decline even further," Baylson wrote.
