Perhaps this is the week that reality finally starts to set in for Republicans who control both chambers of the state’s General Assembly.

On Monday the state Supreme Court ruled that Pennsylvania’s congressional district map, which was drawn in 2011 and went into effect in 2012, “plainly and palpably” violates the state constitution.

The court’s 5-2 ruling, with both Republican justices dissenting, orders state legislators to redraw the map in time for the May 15 primary election.

GOP leaders in the General Assembly — who are responsible for the deplorable condition of the state’s congressional districts in the first place — rolled out canned “outrage” over the ruling.

In a joint statement state senate President Pro Tempore Jo Scarnati, R-Jefferson County, and Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, R-Centre County, chastised the court for “overstepp(ing) its legal authority and set(ting) up an impossible deadline that will only introduce chaos in the upcoming Congressional election.”

“It has elected to give the Legislature 19 days to redraw and adopt the Congressional Districts,” the senate leaders complained.

Predicting a truncated process that generates chaos before a critical mid-term election is one way to spin the court’s ruling.

Another is that the Court has figured out drawing nonpartisan voting districts doesn’t actually take that long — an expert for the plaintiffs used a computer to randomly draw hundreds of districts — and has determined that giving Republicans four months to redraw the maps would only result in another set of flawed, partisan districts that also violate the state constitution’s guarantee of free speech and free expression.

On Monday, when they weren’t busy playing the “activist judges” card, Republican leaders also vowed to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. They are, of course, entitled to do so — but a better course forward seems to us to be abiding by the state court’s decision and moving expeditiously to redraw the state’s congressional districts.

Legal experts are divided over whether Monday’s ruling marks the end of the legal wrangling over Pennsylvania’s congressional map.

Some point out that the High Court usually respects decisions from state Supreme Courts that deal with state law, and say that means the legal wrangling in this case is effectively over.

Others note that industrious lawyers might find a way to argue that the state justices violated voters’ federal rights when they came to their decision on the voting districts.

Either way, Republicans have only themselves to blame for the fight over voting districts coming to this impasse.

Legislators from both parties introduced bills in early 2017 that would have created an independent commission to draw voting districts for both Congress and the General Assembly, but GOP House and Senate leaders have spent the ensuing months blocking their advance.

GOP leaders had a chance to be the ones to stand up for better government and break the cycle of opportunistic redistricting, Instead they’re acting like exactly what they are: champions of a status quo that is disenfranchising voters from both parties.