The Constitution’s direction to keep communities whole is not arbitrary, but attempts to maximize citizen voices in the political process by building coherent constituencies for legislators – and by preventing highly politicized gerrymandering. In December 2011, the Pennsylvania Legislative Reapportionment Commission (LRC) released a redistricting plan that ignored this direction.

At the request of the Law Center and Hogan Lovells, the Supreme Court for the first time ever rejected the redistricting plan because it did not uphold “compactness, contiguity, and integrity of political subdivisions”, in accordance with Article II, Section 16 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. On remand, the LRC created a revised plan. In May 2013 the Supreme Court accepted the revised plan although it maintains 135 more subdivisions in House districts and 20 more subdivisions in the Senate districts than petitioner Holt’s revised plan. The Law Center will continue to monitor this process in future redistricting cycles.

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