The leader of the Pa. House Republicans is appealing the state legislative maps to the U.S. Supreme Court

Pennsylvania Republicans aren’t done fighting the new state House map.

The map is likely to erode GOP control of the chamber — there are currently 113 Republicans and 90 Democrats — by creating a roughly even number of seats between those two parties. It was also drawn, mapmakers acknowledged, with an eye toward creating districts where voters of color would have greater opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.

But that effort went too far, House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff (R., Centre) said Thursday in an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Pennsylvania’s Legislative Reapportionment Commission admittedly made extensive use of race in constructing up to 14 state legislative districts,” lawyers for Benninghoff wrote in Thursday’s filing. “The Commission ‘positioned’ Pennsylvania voters into districts because of their race, drawing majority-minority and influence districts in Philadelphia, Allentown, and elsewhere, even though it admitted its use of race went well beyond what the Voting Rights Act … required.”

The appeal doesn’t affect this year’s elections, which are set to occur under the new maps.

Benninghoff’s challenge rests on a question of when, exactly, race can be appropriately considered when drawing district borders: Courts have held that race can be a factor, and is even required when drawing districts to comply with the Voting Rights Act, but it’s not supposed to be a primary consideration. That’s part of decadeslong fights over how to detect and stop racial gerrymanders. Maps can and have been carefully drawn to suppress the voting power of communities of color by, for example, intentionally drawing them into concentrated districts to minimize their influence or splitting them across many districts so their numbers are diluted.

» READ MORE: Pa.’s new legislative maps could boost Democrats, reflecting a closely divided state with more voters of color

In the case of the new state legislative maps, race was used in an effort to empower voters of color, according to the public comments of Mark Nordenberg, the chair of the commission. A former chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh, Nordenberg was appointed to the commission by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and in public hearings he spoke repeatedly of the efforts to draw districts that he believed could help boost the power of voters of color, especially fast-growing Hispanic communities in changing areas of the state.

“When circumstances permitted us to do so, and after ensuring compliance with state and federal law, we fashioned districts to create additional opportunities beyond the minimum requirements of the Voting Rights Act, positioning voters in racial and ethnic minority groups to influence the election of candidates of their choice,” Nordenberg said at a meeting in February.

» READ MORE: Pennsylvania Republicans are going on the attack against a new map for state House districts

Nordenberg himself is a longtime law professor and carefully cited the Voting Rights Act and constitutional considerations, saying the maps were drawn with the traditional redistricting criteria as the primary considerations. Only within those bounds did mapmakers try to create districts aimed at boosting voters of color, he said.

Benninghoff used Nordenberg’s own comments against him in Thursday’s filing as he sought to demonstrate that race had been top of mind in drawing the district boundaries. He accused Nordenberg of performing a legal and rhetorical sleight-of-hand by claiming to use race as a secondary factor for positive reasons but actually crossing the line.

“Unless the Court clarifies that drawing new voting districts with the transparent purpose of hitting racial targets or specific racial objectives is presumptively unconstitutional, it can expect that, again and again, state authorities will flout its equal-protection commands,” lawyers for Benninghoff wrote in Thursday’s filing.

Pennsylvania’s political maps are redrawn every 10 years and how the districts are drawn — in a state split evenly between Democrats and Republicans — shapes the representation and influence of communities across the state and the power of the political parties. After a decade under a state House map that skewed in favor of Republicans, the new map shepherded by Nordenberg drew immediate attacks from House Republicans by shifting the balance of power toward the center.

» READ MORE: Pa. Democrats could get a big boost from a new state House map, while the GOP would solidify a Senate edge

The state Senate and House maps are drawn by the five-member commission, which is made up of the Democratic and Republican leaders of both chambers and a chair who is usually appointed by the Supreme Court. Benninghoff and Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward (R., Westmoreland) voted against the initial map proposals. The final maps were approved together in a single vote, with Ward joining Nordenberg and the Democratic leaders to approve the map. (A spokesperson said afterward that Ward’s vote reflected her approval of the Senate map and that she would have voted against the House map.)

In a statement Thursday, Nordenberg said his lawyers had not yet fully reviewed the appeal.

“However, we continue to believe that the Commission’s plan, which was approved by a 4 to 1 bipartisan vote within the Commission itself and then unanimously upheld by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, satisfies all of the requirements of both state and federal law,” he said, “and also fairly meets the needs of the citizens of the Commonwealth.”