Opinion ID: 1984918
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 17

Heading: Allegheny County

Text: However, the Plaintiffs' Plans 1 and 2 encounter a challenge in their proposed disposition of Congressional Districts Fourteen and Eighteen in Allegheny County and in areas surrounding it, a portion of the state where the most substantial population decline has occurred over the previous decade. Because of the anticipated retirement of Congressman Gaydos in the Twentieth Congressional District, the repositioning of a portion of that district has loomed large in reducing the number of Pennsylvania districts from 23 to 21. Accusations of partisanship have been directed by various parties at each other. The issue requires graphic illustration. On the following two pages are shown proposals for Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. The first map following is that proposed by Plaintiffs' Plan 2. The second map following is the same area as it appears in Plaintiffs' Plan 3, the plan which the plaintiffs withdrew during the hearings. (26) The City of Pittsburgh has been, and is proposed by all to remain entirely within the Fourteenth Congressional District. (27) The City of Pittsburgh is surrounded by suburbs on all sides, with suburbs in the North Hills, in Sewickley Valley (in the northwest), and in Chartiers Valley, all having some community of interest. (R2B:108-110) (28) The city has more in common with the close-in easterly suburbs and in the Monongahela Valley's former steel-making areas than with the suburbs in the north, west and south. Plaintiffs' Plan 3 (the second map) appears to recognize those community-of-interest factors by extending the Fourteenth District into the westerly side of the Monongahela Valley and encircling the Fourteenth District with the Eighteenth to embrace the northerly, westerly and southerly suburbs. The result, however, is to create an Eighteenth Congressional District which in shape is almost a hollow circle with an open are at the bottom. The present Eighteenth Congressional District also embraces the city on the north, west and south but, not quite in a configuration approximating a circle. The configuration in Plaintiffs' Plan 2, on the first map, is visually more compact, with the Fourteenth District covering the city and part of the suburbs north and northwest of the city, while the Eighteenth District is proposed to embrace the northeasterly suburbs, the easternmost suburbs and municipalities on both sides of the Monongahela River, plus an arm extending westward to some of the suburbs due south of the city. Neither of these proposals are models of compactness or contiguity, but in that respect, the Plaintiffs' Plans are not alone. The Loeper Plan proposes a result similar to Plaintiffs' Plan 3, and the Murtha-McDade Plan would treat the Fourteenth District in some respects similar to Plaintiffs' Plan 3 by extending that district into the northerly suburbs. Again, when the courts are thrust into this role, with no feasible option except to take one entire plan or the other, applying the more objective criteria of compactness and contiguity indicates acceptance of Plaintiffs' Plan 2 on that basis, as a less satisfying aspect of a plan otherwise meritorious.