Legal Intelligencer / Will Courts Be the Wild Card in Pa. Redistricting Poker?
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One of the most closely watched actions of the upcoming session of the General Assembly will be redistricting.
Preliminary U.S. Census data show that Pennsylvania will lose one seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. But the process, which is likely to kick off in earnest when detailed data are released in the spring, will require not only new lines to define congressional districts, but also seats in both houses of the General Assembly and local bodies such as the Allegheny County Council.
It's commonly asserted that the Republicans have complete control over the process. After all, the GOP is set to be the majority in the state Senate and state House and Gov.-elect Tom Corbett is a Republican.
But not so fast.
The state Supreme Court, nominally controlled by a 4-3 GOP majority, may prove to be a wild card.
There is little question that the courts -- federal and state -- can be the crucial player in political district line-drawing.
According to a study by the Committee of Seventy, an electoral watchdog group based in Philadelphia, the congressional redistricting process after the 1990 Census "was so contentious and drawn-out that the state Supreme Court finally had to step in and impose a plan of its own." The 1990s General Assembly redistricting plan also had to be approved after litigation in the high court. And in the 2000s, when Latino leaders objected to the fairness of new General Assembly lines, it was up to the justices to weigh the Legislative Reapportionment Commission's plan.
The nominal GOP majority on the Supreme Court may just be that -- nominal.
First, there seems to be little love lost between the newest Republican on the high court, Justice Joan Orie Melvin, and longest-serving Republican, Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille.
Early last year, Justice Castille had a tartly worded response to Justice Orie Melvin's concurring and dissenting opinion on a procedural issue in a politically charged case, In re Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice, calling his colleague's offering "the height of judicial activism."
First Published January 3, 2011 12:00 am
