The recent decision to void Pennsylvania's congressional map over gerrymandering concerns may cause some confusion in the upcoming election, but, according to court watchers, the appeal to halt that ruling faces extremely long odds.

Last week the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled 5-2 in League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania v. Commonwealth that the state's 2011 congressional map “clearly, plainly and palpably violates the constitution of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.” The ruling, which found that the congressional map was the result of partisan gerrymandering, also barred its use in the upcoming 2018 election cycle.

On Jan. 25, the two lead defendants in the case, state Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati and Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Michael Turzai, filed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court asking that the justices stay the decision. But, according to several court watchers, it is unlikely the highest court in the land is going to consider their appeal.

“If the Supreme Court acted in accordance with 50 years of precedent, the chances of their granting any review would be substantially zero,” election law attorney Gregory Harvey of Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads said.

The defendants in the case raise several issues to the Supreme Court justices in their application for stay, chief among them is the argument that the ruling encroached on the General Assembly's legislative power granted in Article I Section 4 of the constitution.

“Rather than apply the law as handed down from Pennsylvania's proper lawmakers, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has apparently divined its new criteria from generic state constitutional guarantees of free speech and equal protection, the bases of the claims filed below,” the filing said. “But if a state free-speech clause can be manipulated to mean that districts must be 'compact,' or an equal-protection guarantee can mean that districts must 'not divide any county,' then anything is possible. State courts would be free to legislate an infinite number of requirements and impose them on state legislatures, thereby seizing control of elections to federal office.”

However, according to attorneys, the main hurdle for the defendants is that the Supreme Court's ruling focused on the Pennsylvania Constitution, and it is very rare for the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a case dealing with the interpretation of a state constitution.

“The odds are declining by the minute,” University of California Irvine professor Richard Hasen said, noting that Scarnati and Turzai had asked the justices to rule on their application for appeal by Jan. 31 and, as of Monday, the justices had not yet asked the League of Women Voters to file a response brief. “I would not expect them to issue a stay without a response.”

Hasen also said the request to have the federal court intervene in the case conflicts with arguments that the defendants made in two other cases challenging Pennsylvania's 2011 congressional map. Those cases are Diamond v. Torres, which was stayed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania following the decision in League of Women Voters, and Agre v. Wolf, which was recently appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

He also cited the Supreme Court's 2015 decision in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, which allowed the state to use an independent commission to adopt congressional districts, and said it forecloses many of the issues the defendants are raising.

“In this case, the Republicans seem to be arguing that only the state legislature can decide the rules,” Hasen said. “It's a very long-shot argument.”

Despite the tough odds, several groups have not been dissuaded from showing their support for Scarnati and Turzai.

On Monday, the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, 11 Pennsylvania members of the U.S. House of Representatives, and the secretaries of state for six states, including Alabama, Arizona, Kansas and Missouri, filed amicus briefs asking the justices to stay the case.

Briefs from the congressional representatives and the state GOP focused on arguments that the ruling could hinder the ability of candidates to properly campaign and could force the party to waste campaign resources “in what might become incorrect congressional districts.” The secretaries of state argued that the ruling could cause confusion in their state and local elections.

Attorney Ben Geffen of the Public Interest Law Center, which represented the plaintiffs in League of Women Voters, dismissed the argument that the ruling will cause problems in the upcoming election, saying that the Pennsylvania justices already considered this issue.

“It's hardly out of the ordinary,” he said. “When courts have ordered changes to the districting plans in the weeks or months before an election, many many cases have happened on a faster basis and have proceeded just fine.”

Attorneys Jason Torchinsky of Holtzman Vogel Josefiak Torchinsky, who is representing Scarnati, and Kathleen Gallagher of Cipriani & Werner, who is representing Turzai, each did not immediately return calls seeking comment.