PIANO TEACHER’S REVOLUTION: Court Decision May Trigger Sea Change In Pa. Politics

BY TONY WEST/ The Jan. 25 Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision that voided the General Assembly’s reapportionment plan swept through Keystone State politics like a tsunami. The justices upended every politician’s plans for the upcoming Apr. 24 primary, leaving all players in a mad scramble as they tried to figure out which district they would run in and when the election would be held. There wasn’t much time to think about long-term consequences.

US District Judge R. Barclay Surrick’s ruling on Feb. 8 settled the dust a little. The 2001 boundaries will remain in effect for this cycle and the April primary will not be moved.

Now we can begin to glimpse the future – and what we are seeing is the Supremes have done more than just smack the legislature around once. They may be forcing a revolution – led by an unlikely Joan of Arc with a pencil.

At stake is the entire way the General Assembly handles redistricting after each census. If the opinion issued by Chief Justice Ron Castille on behalf of the 4-3 majority is to be believed, it is the will of this court that the Pennsylvania Constitution henceforth be complied with to the letter. Oddly, this is indeed a revolution which, if carried through, will kick the ground rules of Pennsylvania politics into a cocked hat, for better or for worse.

State lawmakers are charged with redistricting. For the past 30 years, they have followed two guiding principles and recognized two constraints. Rule one is: Preserve every incumbent’s seat by packing it with the kind of voters he or she wants. Rule two is: If one party controls both houses of the legislature as well as the governorship, to that winner go any spoils when an incumbent must be sacrificed.

However, federal law requires a high degree of population equality between districts. It also enforces a proportional number of districts which can be won by racial-minority candidates.

But that’s not all. The State Constitution also says, “Unless absolutely necessary no county, city, incorporated town, borough, township or ward shall be divided in forming either a senatorial or representative district.”

In practice, legislatures have long ignored this rule. Doing so made it easy for incumbents to cut across counties to cherry-pick their favorite townships, or chop up wards to string together choice divisions. This can help incumbents choose the racial balance or the party registration of their constituents; it can also keep them from, say, having to move their residence when district lines change.

When gerrymanders were challenged in previous cycles, the Legislative Reapportionment Commission argued it needed to break up local governments to comply with federal requirements, and the Supreme Court always deferred to it.

Enter Amanda Holt, a piano teacher, without a college degree, and a Republican committeewoman in Upper Macungie Township outside Allentown. In the 2010 election, she was amazed to discover how her close neighbors were scattered into different legislative districts.

“I noticed the district boundaries to me seemed rather crazy. I asked myself if there was some kind of law that requires this,” she explained. “I decided to get an answer to this question and it led me to places I never imagined.”

Working with Excel spreadsheets of 2009 Census Bureau estimates, a set of blank maps and a pencil, she spent December 2010 coming up with district boundaries that were contiguous and broke up as few counties and municipalities as possible. Holt observed requirements of population equality and racial balance as well. When the 2010 Census figures came in, she easily updated her map.

It was ready-made for challenges to the 2011 redistricting plan, which was finalized in December. Democrat Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa (D-Allegheny) filed one; Holt filed another, represented by the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia.

It was the piano teacher’s work that carried the day. In an 87-page decision, Justice Castille referred repeatedly to Holt’s map as proof the LRC’s weaving gerrymanders were not, in fact, necessary.

In Holt’s plan, Castille noted, “For the House, 184 fewer subdivisions were divided, and 453 fewer fractures were established; in the Senate, 31 fewer subdivisions were split, and 93 fewer divisions were established.” He called this “compelling, objective, concrete proof that a large number of political subdivision splits were not ‘absolutely necessary’.”

Castille stated the LRC is not obliged to adopt Holt’s plan when it goes back to the drawing board. But it will have to do about as well as Holt did if it is to pass the test the Supreme Court has now set up in bold language: “Accordingly, we take this opportunity to reaffirm the importance of the multiple commands in Article II, Section 16, which embrace contiguity, compactness, and the integrity of political subdivisions.”

If this rule holds, it means the end of an era. Try as they will, there is no way the General Assembly can piece together a plan that avoids throwing many incumbents into the same district, or that neatly packages uncompetitive one-party districts around each one’s residence.

Implications for Philadelphia are dramatic. Our strange-looking 2001 State House districts, often only a few blocks wide in places, wrapped around each other in spindly squiggles, with weird knobs and orifices designed to transfer divisions from one district to another at whim – all these must go. For the most part, districts must be built out of whole wards.

This approach will start off with 28 enemies: every State Representative in town. But it will have 137 enthusiastic fans: Philadelphia’s Republican and Democrat ward leaders. Some Democrat ward leaders, in particular Elaine Tomlin of the 42nd Democrat Ward, have long complained their wards are split up among three or four different representatives’ turfs, diluting a community’s voice in Harrisburg. If wards become key to mapping, then ward leaders become keys to election.

In the State Senate delegation, one result of a “Holt-based” plan would be the loss of a Senator for the city. That’s because the 2010 Census figures neatly cram six Senators into Philadelphia Co. with no need to cross the county line. Under the current map, Philadelphia has seven Senators, but three of them take in large swaths of suburbia as well.

In both houses, it will become harder for the LRC to draw districts which pack in high numbers of one race or party. Overall, this may lead to more competitive elections both in the city and across the state.

Since both the current 2001 map and the rejected 2011 map were drawn by and for Republicans, adherence to “contiguity, compactness and integrity” is likely to favor Democrats in 2014.

That doesn’t trouble Holt, though. “I hope the Constitution continues to serve to provide checks and balances for our system,” she said.

AMANDA HOLT ... revolutionized redistricting

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