Court Opinion

ID: 9695282
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:14:37.762982+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:10.639526
License: Public Domain

LARSEN, Justice,
dissenting.
Article II, § 16 of the Pennsylvania Constitution provides that “[ujnless absolutely necessary no county, city, incorporated town, borough, township or ward shall be divided in forming either a senatorial or representative district.” (Emphasis supplied.) Despite the unequivocal language of this constitutional requirement, both the Commission and the majority, in their relentless pursuit of population equality, have nullified this requirement by elevating equality of population from an “overriding objective” 1 to the sole consideration of reapportionment, and have wholly ignored the facts alleged by the various petitioners in this case. Because I believe that the Commission’s plan is thus contrary to law, I dissent.
I.
Complete population equality in reapportionmént has never been a constitutional requirement: “substantial equality of population” permits some deviation from ideally populated districts, so long as that deviation is based upon a rational state policy, such as the preservation of political subdivisions. See Mahan v. Howell, 410 U.S. 315, 93 S.Ct. 979, 35 L.Ed.2d 320 (1973); Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964).2
*543Deviations from the ideal may be substantially larger than the deviations in the Commission’s plan. In Commonwealth ex rel. Specter v. Levin, supra, this Court found that a deviation of 4.31% from the ideal senatorial district, and a deviation of 5.46% from the ideal legislative district, “fully achieves the constitutionally-mandated overriding objective of substantial equality of population.” 448 Pa. at 16, 293 A.2d at 22. One year later, the United States Supreme Court, in upholding a 16-odd percent deviation in Virginia’s legislative reapportionment plan, concluded that population disparities which maintain the integrity of political subdivision lines are “within tolerable constitutional limits.” Mahan v. Howell, supra 410 U.S. at 329, 93 S.Ct. at 987.
II.
The following cases presented for this Court’s review reveal the consequences of achieving population equality at the expense of political subdivision integrity.

City of Pottsville

It is uncontradicted that Pottsville is the only third class city in Schuylkill County; that Pottsville is the county seat of Schuylkill County; and that Pottsville has, for the last ten years, remained intact as part of a single representative district. In addition, an alternate plan was proposed to the Commission which would not require splitting Pottsville and which would still result in substantial population equality.
*544Nevertheless, the Commission’s plan divides Pottsville between two different representative districts without any showing of necessity.

Cumberland County

According to the alternate plan which Cumberland County presented for the Commission’s consideration, that county could be kept intact and divided into three representative districts with a maximum deviation of only 4.3% from the ideal. Within those three districts, only one municipality would need to be split in order to ensure substantial equality of population.
Nevertheless, the Commission’s plan splits Cumberland County and combines portions of it with portions of York, Adams and Perry Counties to form four representative districts. In addition, within Cumberland County, the Commission’s plan splits two townships — South Middleton and North Middleton — and places portions of each into different representative districts.

Allegheny County

Pursuant to the Commission’s plan, the municipalities of Scott Township, Bethel Park Borough, White Oak Borough, Indiana Township and Carnegie have each been divided between two representative districts; the Town of McCandless has been parceled into three different representative districts, despite the fact that for the past ten years the entire town has been part of a single representative district; the Borough of Baldwin has also been split between three representative districts; and the 16th Ward and the neighborhood of Brookline in the City of Pittsburgh have each been split between two representative districts.
. As the alternate plans submitted to the Commission demonstrate, however, it is not necessary to divide these communities in order to achieve substantial population equality: one alternate plan would place the entire municipalities of Scott Township, Bethel Park Borough, White Oak Borough, Indiana Township, Carnegie and the Town of McCandless into representative districts without any splits and with a *545maximum deviation of just 3% from the ideal; yet another would preserve the integrity of the 16th Ward, the neighborhood of Brookline, and Baldwin Borough with a maximum deviation of just 1.38% from the ideal.

Philadelphia County

Despite the obviously different interests between residents of the City of Philadelphia and their suburban neighbors in adjacent counties, the Commission’s plan splits Philadelphia County and places 26,000 Philadelphia residents into a senatorial district along with portions of Delaware and Montgomery Counties.
The Commission has failed to allege any necessity for removing these Philadelphia residents from their city and county for purposes of state senate representation, and has disregarded an alternate proposal which would have kept Philadelphia County whole and still resulted in a maximum deviation of only 2% from the ideal in each of the three affected counties.

City of Philadelphia

Of the 66 wards in Philadelphia, the Commission’s plan splits 39 wards into a total of 51 sections in order to form equally populated districts. In addition, the neighborhoods of Chestnut Hill and Mt. Airy have each been divided between two new representative districts, and the neighborhood of Roxborough has been split among three representative districts. Finally, numerous petitioners have alleged the existence of racial and ethnic discrimination in wards and districts where new ward splits occasioned by the Commission’s plan will reduce current black and Hispanic majorities to minorities.
As with the areas cited above, the Commission has offered no showing of necessity, much less “absolute necessity,” for splitting the wards and neighborhoods in which petitioners reside, despite the fact that several plans, each of which preserves ward and neighborhood integrity and maintains substantial population equality, were offered for the Commission’s consideration.
*546III.
Each of the political subdivisions sought to be protected by Article II, § 16 of the state constitution has unique interests: state law grants counties control over such areas as local court administration, mental health and mental retardation programs, taxation, transportation, and smaller community health and welfare services; cities like Philadelphia, the state’s only first class city, and Pottsville, the only third class city in Schuylkill County, have statutory rights and duties different from the rights and duties of the smaller communities surrounding them; and boroughs, townships, towns, wards and neighborhoods are comprised of racial and ethnic groups with common interests in the economic, residential, recreational and educational betterment of their communities.
The immediate consequences of the Commission’s plan are clear: once political subdivisions have been split, there is little chance that the interests of their residents will be represented effectively so long as their elected representatives also represent other areas with different interests, and so long as more than one representative must represent a single area which has been divided among two, three or even four districts. There is also less chance that a particular racial or ethnic group within a split area will be able to elect one of its members to represent its interests so long as the splits required by the Commission’s plan reduce a single majority to two or more minorities in separate districts. Thus, the Commission’s plan will actually deny numerous political subdivisions and their constituent racial and ethnic populations effective representation in the state legislature, despite the plan’s numerical adherence to the ideal of “one person, one vote.”
Consideration of these interests and the alternate plans proposed by the petitioners in this case would not result in the mere substitution of another plan for the one already submitted by the Commission; rather, it would simply result in giving effect to each portion of Article II, § 16 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, a mandate which neither the Commission nor the majority has carried out in this case.
*547I would, therefore, remand the plan to the Commission with instructions to reapportion the above areas in accordance with all the requirements of Article II, § 16 of the state constitution.

. This Court has recognized that the “overriding objective” under equal protection is “substantial equality of population.” Commonwealth ex rel. Specter v. Levin, 448 Pa. 1, 7, 293 A.2d 15, 18 (1972).

. As the United States Supreme Court has stated:
So long as the divergences from a strict population standard are based on legitimate considerations incident to the effectuation of a rational state policy, some deviations from the equal-population principle are constitutionally permissible with respect to the apportionment of seats in ... a bicameral state legislature.
*543Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 579, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 1390, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964).
The United States Supreme Court has further held that “[t]he policy of maintaining the integrity of political subdivision lines in the process of reapportioning a state legislature ... is a rational one.” Mahan v. Howell, 410 U.S. 315, 329, 93 S.Ct. 979, 987, 35 L.Ed.2d 320 (1973). See also Reynolds v. Sims, supra 377 U.S. at 580, 84 S.Ct. at 1391 (“A consideration that appears to be of more substance in justifying some deviations from population-based representation in state legislatures is that of insuring some voice to political subdivisions, as political subdivisions.”).
To say that Pennsylvania’s policy of maintaining the integrity of political subdivisions in the reapportionment process is rational is an understatement; in fact, such a policy is constitutionally mandated, and may not be avoided “unless absolutely necessary.”