The 2011 Legislative Reapportionment Commission plans to meet February 22 to propose a new plan in response to the PA Supreme Court finding their adopted plan unconstitutional. The below item from Capitolwire.com suggests no new plan could become law until just before the scheduled April 24 Primary. Unless the Primary is postponed, the legislative portion of the primary will have to be held using the current 2001 districts.
Reapportionment commission staff says next plan faces 60 days of comments, appeals. A new opinion by Legislative Reapportionment Commission counsel Joseph Del Sole says it will be late April before a new state redistricting plan could take effect. The reason is because both the commission and the state Supreme Court have to observe separate 30-day review periods. That means if the commission approves a preliminary plan on Feb. 22, meeting its proposed schedule, then it would hold hearings and could not vote on a final plan for 30 days, as the state constitution requires. The soonest the final plan could then be adopted would be March 23, and then the Supreme Court is required by the the constitution to allot 30 days to allow the filing of appeals. If appeals were filed, the court would have to hold a hearing, and then issue a decision, which some attorneys think could take until May.
Links to all the documents associated with the appeal of the final legislative redistricting plan can be found on the Redistricting Updates section of Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi’s website http://www.senatorpileggi.com/contact.htm.
