Amanda Holt's challenge leads the way in justices' 4-3 ruling
By Eric Boehm | PA Independent
HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the new state House and Senate maps is a reminder that even in the most cynical of political activities, the power remains with the people.
In the official decision handed down Friday afternoon, the justices explained its 4-3 decision against the newly proposed state House and Senate maps last week and detailed what changes should be made for the maps to meet constitutional muster.
In the majority opinion, Chief Justice Ron Castille said the proposal developed by the state Legislative Reapportionment Commission, which drew the new districts, overstepped the law by unnecessarily dividing counties and municipalities across the state.
Castille pointed to the work of Amanda Holt, a resident of Lehigh County, who offered an alternative statewide plan with fewer municipal and county splits.
“The Holt plan is powerful evidence indeed,” wrote Castille. “This powerful evidence, challenging the Final Plan as a whole, suffices to show that the Final Plan is contrary to law.”
Holt, a piano teacher-turned-political-wonk who has been at the center of the redistricting debate here, said she was “awe-inspired and humbled” by the Supreme Court’s ruling and her apparent influence on the decision.
“It’s humbling to know that citizens really can make a difference,” Holt told PA Independent on Friday afternoon. “For me, it means that all the hours of work have paid off.”
Holt began working on her alternative plan more than 15 months ago, presented it to the commission at a hearing in September, and was the lead plaintiff on one of the 11 legal challenges filed against the final maps, which the commission approved in December.
The Legislative Reapportionment Commission, which consisted of Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Chester; Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Allegheny; House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny; House Minority Leader Frank Dermody, D-Allegheny; and retired Superior Court Judge Stephen McEwen, who was appointed by the state Supreme Court as chairman.
The commission approved the final maps with a 4-1 vote on Dec. 13, with Costa casting the single vote against the maps. The Supreme Court heard challenges to the plan on Jan. 23.
With the new plan now rejected, the House and Senate district lines as drawn in 2001 remain the official ones, until a revised plan is approved by the commission and the court.
No instructions or timeline were given in the court's decision for how the commission should proceed, but Castille promised to allow time for appeals after the commission provides the revised maps.
Of the 11 challenges, only Holt’s and a challenge filed on behalf of the Senate Democratic caucus attempted to criticize the map in a holistic way. Other challenges focused on individual, localized issues, such as the divisions of West Chester, Phoenixville and Upper Darby.
In 2001, the Supreme Court heard a number of localized challenges and determined that a successful challenge would have to examine the state as a whole, Castille wrote.
The Holt challenge did exactly that.
In the opinion, Castille said the statewide view of the commission’s plan violated the Pennsylvania Constitution’s requirement that municipalities and counties only be split “when absolutely necessary.”
Castille wrote that the Holt plan “shows that a redistricting map could readily be fashioned which maintained a roughly equivalent level of population deviation … while employing significantly fewer political subdivision splits with respect to both Chambers of the General Assembly.”
The commission does not have to adopt Holt’s plan, or any of the other alternatives presented in the challenges, but has been instructed by the Supreme Court to produce a new plan that will meet constitutional guidelines.
Castille, a Republican, shocked the Pennsylvania political world last week when he sided with three Democrats on the Supreme Court to reject the proposed maps. Justices Max Baer, Debra Todd and Seamus McCaffery joined in the majority opinion.
The other three Republicans on the court each offered dissenting opinions.
Justice Thomas Saylor concluded that the commission’s final maps were “constitutionally permissible” and said he supports the clarification of the appellate review for redistricting challenges, particularly in terms of the acceptance of alternate plans.
In his dissenting opinion, Justice J. Michael Eakin wrote of the Holt plan: "lovely on its surface, is not so beautiful when examined in depth — on the other hand, it may be a masterpiece."
The bottom line, Eakin concluded was that the court does not know whether the Holt plan, or any other plan, proves anything other than that it is possible to divide fewer political subdivisions.
In a third dissenting opinion, Justice Joan Orie Melvin said the majority’s decision was “unprecedented and unnecessary,” and found that the commission acted in good faith by adopting the now-rejected 2011 redistricting maps.
Stacy Brown of the PA Independent contributed to this report.
