SUNBURY – One Pennsylvania lawmaker is not happy about the state congressional map debacle, calling it a ‘constitutional crisis.’ State Senator John Gordner (R-27, Berwick) was invited Friday to call WKOK’s On The Mark program.
He expressed frustration because there’s nothing in the state constitution about the state courts drawing US Congressional maps: “The only reference to drawing congressional maps is in our U.S. Constitution in Article I Section 4. What that says is only state legislatures can direct how maps are drawn.”
Senator Gordner also says a late January court order gave state republicans 16 days to draw a new map, but it was only 14 days later the state Supreme Court issued their full opinion about why the 2011 map was unconstitutional, “That in affect really only gave us two days to pass a map. It takes a minimum of seven days to get a bill through the house and senate. So you wander why it took them 14 days to issue their 123-page opinion and only two days before the deadline they gave us.”
You can hear more from Senator Gordner’s interview at WKOK.com.
