While the state Supreme Court may have been backed into a corner by events and acts of others outside of its control, we still need to say it: the judicial system should not be deciding the boundaries of legislative districts.

Unfortunately, what should be a process independent of our judiciary, determined by our legislature and governor, has become overwhelmed by partisan rancor and an unacceptable stalemate.

Much of this partisan rancor closely follows a national trend and is the responsibility of one party: the Democratic Party.

Democrats have not been honest about gerrymandering — the process of drawing legislative maps in a way to benefit one party or another. They’ve, appropriately, criticized efforts to gerrymander districts in North Carolina and other states in the Republican Party’s favor. They’ve, inappropriately and hypocritically, mostly neglected to speak against efforts to gerrymander maps in Illinois, New York and Maryland in the Democratic Party’s favor.

And, in all of these states and most crucially in Pennsylvania, they’ve neglected to be honest: There is no perfect way to draw these legislative maps.

Somebody’s concerns will have be treated as less of a priority to reach final determinations on where the lines fall.

We have to suspect that some honesty about that — about the imperfection inherent in the maps, the reality that someone somewhere will have to make sacrifices — would lower the temperature of the fervor and allow for compromise.