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A voter registration event in Philadelphia last year. Critics say Pennsylvania’s Congressional district map is one of the most gerrymandered in the country. Credit Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Pennsylvania’s congressional district map is a partisan gerrymander that “clearly, plainly and palpably” violates the state’s constitution, the state’s Supreme Court said on Monday, joining a string of court decisions that have struck down political maps that unduly favor one political party.

The court banned the current map of 18 House districts from being used again, and ordered that a proposed new map be submitted to the court by Feb. 15. But the state’s Republican-dominated legislature, which approved the current district map in 2011, has already said it would seek to overturn such a decision in federal court. That would set up another legal battle over gerrymanders in a year already filled with them.

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Adventures in Extreme Gerrymandering: See the Fair and Wildly Unfair Maps We Made for Pennsylvania

An exercise in ruthless gerrymandering in a state already known for it.

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