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Dept. of State Moves Congressional Petition Dates

In response to the state Supreme Court ruled Pennsylvania’s Congressional maps unconstitutional, the Department of State announced it is shifting the dates for Congressional candidates to circulate petitions.  

Congressional candidates will start circulating petitions on February 27th, and file them by March 20th.  The shift only applies to Congressional petitions, candidates seeking other offices in the state will circulate based off the original deadlines.  

The ballot lottery will then be held on March 22nd, and candidates will have until March 27th to challenge petition signatures or withdraw their names from the ballot.  

The Department says it “will make nomination petition forms and instructions available for the office of Representative in Congress as soon as possible after a new Congressional Redistricting Plan is approved.”  

The Supreme Court set February 9th as the deadline for legislators to draw a new map and submit it to the Governor who will have until February 15th to approve it and send it to the court.

18 Responses

  1. I am getting ready to send the Supreme Court the bill for candidates I wrote a check to for a refund when they write them out of their districts they told me they were running in.That should be interesting but hell they will probably recuse themselves Same old same old. When you have no answers you create more questions

  2. Rather than go through all this trouble we need an independent benevolent citizen to appoint all 18 Congress people. I will volunteer. And I promise to do a better job that four PA Supreme Court Justices elected by political contributions from the trail lawyers and unions.

  3. The PA Supreme Court is right. If something is unconstitutional, they have to end it. The General Assembly didn’t need to make PA the laughing stock of the country wth Disneyesque districts after the 2010 census but they did. Meanwhile the voters suffer. Counties like Chesco and Delco should comprise the center of congressional districts, not be shredded into several far-flung districts. Making districts represent an actual community will engage voters, as democracy requires.

    1. So this was such a travesty that we didn’t need to change these until a few months before an election… I mean the current maps have been around for a couple years… The laughing stock is that Dems can’t win at the ballot box so they use the courts. I’d love to see their non-gerrymandered maps next time they control the map making process….

      1. The travesty is that in 2011 our Republican Supreme Court ruled our present districting constitutional! Gerrymandering is why Democrats don’t win, except in state-wide races. (How do you think we ended up with a Democrat court?)

  4. As currently drawn, The Pennsylvania Congressional District Map provides for maximum balance of power among all federal representatives. Large contiguous areas can only promote further territorial exclusivity. Having another congressman in an elongated district nearby (as in current pre-court mapping) will mandate more intercooperation among Representatives in Washington DC. Democrats’ behavior during SOTU this past January 30 clearly shows desire for less intercooperation and more territorial exclusivity.

    1. Caring Pennsylvanian-

      That is exactly the opposite of what’s going on. The unconstitutional 2011 was a blatant power-grab by the GOP from the voters to disenfranchise them and create un-representative government. It was a complete abuse of power, and now it is being rectified.

      The current map prevented cooperation because everyone was in a party-safe seat and had nothing to gain by cooperating. They actually had more to lose by cooperating from challenger threats from the far-right (or far-left) wings of their parties. This forced them to avoid compromise and cater to the far-wing bases to avoid challengers.

      You got it 100% wrong.

      With fairly draw districts, representatives have to be more bipartisan and can’t keep ignoring all their constituents.

    2. I remember very well how members of the opposition party sat on their hands when President Obama was in office during the SOTU address.

    1. No–they could have kept everybody on the same calendar. That was the only way to be fair. This way, Congressional candidates are getting shifted to new geography and have 2 less weeks to run.

      1. Don’t know about everyone else, but I’m totally happy knowing the congressional campaign cluster f+$! Is gonna be 2 weeks shorter!

  5. The Dept. of State clearly has no idea the mess they have made for party loyalists who always circulate petitions for multiple candidates.

    1. Party loyalists can circulate another petition for those first two weeks instead of a congressional one – not counting party committee races, there’s 4-5 other races on the ballot. And I imagine plenty of party loyalists will be circulating their own committeeperson petitions as well.

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