HARRISBURG —
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court today explained its reasons for rejecting the state’s legislative redistricting plan last week, and a justice who disagreed with the ruling said this year’s races will have to be held under the existing, decade-old maps.
The 87-page majority opinion said those who challenged the Legislative Reapportionment Commission’s new map of 50 Senate and 203 House districts showed there were numerous splits of municipalities that were not absolutely necessary.
The ruling, written by Chief Justice Ronald Castille, a Republican, and joined fully by the three Democrats on the seven-member court, said the challengers also showed the commission “could have easily achieved a substantially greater fidelity to all of the mandates in (the state constitution) – compactness, contiguity, and integrity of political subdivisions – yet the LRC did not do so in the Final Plan.”
Castille’s opinion acknowledged that the decision to throw out the plan has created uncertainty in the election season, which is now under way, with candidates circulating nominating petitions for the April 24 primary. Castille said the commission delayed in issuing its plan, which it approved 4-1 in mid-December.
“In these circumstances, ones not of this court’s creation, the rights of the citizenry and fidelity to our constitutional duty made the disruption unavoidable,” Castille wrote.
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Justice J. Michael Eakin, a Republican, said he did not argue with the “reordering of constitutional priorities by the majority,” but said he did not see a need to make it retroactive.
“Computers or not, drawing a new plan using new rules will not happen in time for this year’s elections,” Eakin wrote in a concurring and dissenting opinion.
Justice Joan Orie Melvin, a Republican whose sister holds an Allegheny County state Senate seat, dissented, saying “it is clear that there is no perfect plan” and called the majority’s solution “both unprecedented and unnecessary.”
Thomas Saylor, the fourth Republican justice, also filed a dissenting and concurring opinion.
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