When the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled last month that the state’s congressional district maps are unconstitutional, it must have seemed too good to be true for critics of gerrymandering.

And up until Monday, with the real possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court would intervene and keep the maps in place, it almost was.

Now, however, it most certainly is true — and GOP leaders in the Pennsylvania General Assembly are already running out of time.

In a joint statement Monday House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-28th, and Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-25th, said they will “do our best to comply,” with the court’s Jan. 22 order.

They’ve done a terrible job so far.

Republican leaders have lambasted the state Supreme Court’s decision, saying it “poses a profound threat” to the integrity of the upcoming Congressional elections.

That’s a histrionic pronouncement — especially from a group of elected officials that so mangled Pennsylvania’s voting map in 2011 that it now requires a last-minute rewrite to avoid disenfranchising voters for the eighth year in a row.

And if Republicans now find themselves facing an even-tighter timeline to produce a legal map of Pennsylvania’s Congressional districts, they have only themselves to blame.

Instead of respecting the court’s Jan. 22 order that the maps be redrawn, approved and submitted by Feb. 15, GOP leaders have spent the last two weeks trying to wriggle out from under it.

First they complained that the timeline was “impossible.” Then they complained that the court hadn’t issued a full opinion along with its Jan. 22 order. Then GOP leaders like Scarnati refused to comply with a Jan. 26 order from the state court requesting geographical and other data that is used to draw the districts. Then the GOP filed an emergency brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking for the state court’s ruling to be put on hold.

That all came crashing down Monday, when U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito rejected their request.

Now GOP leaders pledge to do their “best” to comply, while arguing still another motion before the state Supreme Court asking Justice David Wecht to recuse himself. Unsurprisingly, Wecht said Monday that he will not.

Perhaps GOP leaders in the General Assembly should now entertain the possibility that they’re not nearly as clever as they believe themselves to be.

Then they can buckle down and get to work. It’s time to sideline the political sideshow and produce voting maps that let voters pick their legislators rather than the other way around.