To virtually no one’s surprise the Republican-dominated state Legislature and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf were unable to reach agreement on a new congressional map for Pennsylvania by the self-imposed Jan. 24 deadline.

This impasse was made official this week when Wolf vetoed the Republican approved map. Since Republicans don’t have enough votes to override the governor’s veto, the Commonwealth Court will take over the process, and whatever it comes up by its self-imposed Sunday deadline, it will likely be appealed to the state Supreme Court where Democrats enjoy a 5-2 majority.

This almost certain delay is likely to have consequences on the timing of the May 17 primaries because, first of all, candidates have to know in which district they will be living, then they have specific dates to circulate nominating petitions and get them filed by the deadline.

If the impasse does not get resolved, it won’t be a question of keeping the same map until the logjam is broken, because Pennsylvania has lost a seat in the House of Representatives, meaning that there will be 17 legislators starting with the next session of Congress in 2023 rather than the 18 we have now. Of course, there are likely to be at least one or two retirements or resignations, so this would eliminate the messy necessity of incumbents battling each other.

Most states, which also have to reapportion their congressional delegation, are way ahead of Pennsylvania because they did not get bogged down in politics or have different processes to handle the complicated mapmaking issues.

Wolf surprised us by coming up with his own map, so Republicans knew at that point that this is the only map that he would consider. In a letter to legislative leaders, Wolf outlined his objections to their map, saying, “The map has significant differences in population among districts, splits multiple communities of interest to improve the chance a Republican will win an election, and falls short on this basic measure of partisan fairness, among other concerns.”

I am disappointed in Wolf, because he refused to negotiate with the Republican leadership to come up with a workable compromise. By the same token, Democratic legislators claim they were largely left out of the process by their Republican colleagues.

That said, with the poisonous atmosphere in Harrisburg, it’s difficult for Wolf to turn the other cheek when it has been slapped repeatedly by the Republicans, who feel he has done a terrible job during the pandemic. He has rankled them by largely sidestepping them with executive edicts, so Republicans are looking at ways to sidestep his go-it-alone pronouncements and legislative agenda with a series of constitutional amendments.

Commonwealth Court has set Sunday as the deadline for the parties to agree on a map. It called for two days of hearings (Thursday and today) to listen to interested parties plead their respective cases. With Feb. 15 the first day that candidates can start circulating nominating petitions, the whole primary election cycle could be upended. Who will be left to pick up the pieces? Local election officials in the state’s 67 counties.

The process began with House Republicans tentatively approving a map submitted by Amanda Holt, an Allentown area piano teacher and former Lehigh County Republican commissioner from among 19 citizen maps submitted. They amended the map because they felt it disadvantaged some Republican districts.

Senate Republicans came along and released their own map, which varied in a few key ways from the one embraced by their colleagues in the House. Wolf didn’t like either of these or the compromise version sent to his desk and devised his own. So this is where we are.

The Holt map makes several changes to the existing 7th, 8th and 9th districts that include our five counties.

Carbon and Schuylkill counties remain in their entirety in Republican Dan Meuser’s 9th district, along with all or parts of a total of 13 counties in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Democrat Susan Wild’s 7th district, which now includes all of Lehigh and Northampton counties and part of southern Monroe County, would lose the Monroe boroughs and townships, and they would go into Democrat Matt Cartwright’s 8th District, while Wild would pick up several municipalities in Berks County.

Under the Holt proposal, all of Monroe County would be part of Cartwright’s district, along with all or parts of six other counties in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Wolf’s map keeps Democrat Susan Wild’s 7th District largely the way it is now with all of Lehigh and Northampton counties and part of southern Monroe County. Carbon County, now in Republican Dan Meuser’s 9th District would be moved into Democrat Matt Cartwright’s 8th District along with the other part of Monroe not in the 7th District. All of Schuylkill County would remain in Meuser’s 9th District under Wolf’s plan.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.