Over the Line?

GOP leaders throw cold water on plan to impeach Pa. high court justices

Some Pennsylvania House Republicans urged impeachment after the Democratic-majority state Supreme Court declared the state’s congressional map unconstitutional and redrew it.

Katie Meyer

March 24, 2018

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas G. Saylor, a Republican, has called the push for impeaching his Democratic colleagues “an attack upon an independent judiciary.”(WHYY file photo)

Despite national media attention, a GOP push to impeach some of Pennsylvania’s Democratic Supreme Court Justices probably won’t get much traction.

House leaders say they don’t plan to support the measure.

A handful of House Republicans began calling for impeachment after the Democratic-majority state Supreme Court declared the state’s congressional map unconstitutional and redrew it.

The new map is more favorable to Democrats.

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The issue has now festered for more than a month.

Indiana County’s Rep. Cris Dush, the main sponsor, said he the justices “stripped the legislature of their sovereign authority to write legislation.”

But House GOP Leader Dave Reed said he and other leaders are wholeheartedly not on board — noting while they don’t agree with the court’s decision, impeachment is not the answer.

Reed’s spokesman, Steve Miskin, said the resolutions aren’t guaranteed to get committee votes.

And even if they get through at some point, he added, “seeing as the leader doesn’t seem apt to take it up, it’s not getting a vote on the floor right now.”

Chief Justice Thomas Saylor, one of two Republicans on the state’s high court, also condemned the impeachment resolutions.

He called them “an attack upon an independent judiciary.”

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