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(Editor's Note: Updated Thursday PM to add new information, quotes.)

A state Supreme Court decision throwing out a proposed redistricting map appears to preserve the Mon Valley seat currently held by state Sen. Jim Brewster, at least through 2014.

The two-page, 4-3 ruling issued last night, said the map violated state law and freezes the current districts in place.

That will force a Republican-led committee to draw a new map of state legislative and senatorial districts statewide, which is unlikely to be complete and approved in time for this year's May primaries. (Read the ruling here.)

According to published reports, it's the first time in 40 years that the state's high court has rejected a redistricting plan. Democrats, who are in the minority in both houses of the state General Assembly, had complained that the Republican map didn't group together neighboring towns, but instead divided up communities strictly for partisan advantage.

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More than 70 people --- some private citizens, others representing activist groups such as Common Cause --- filed objections in the Supreme Court to the plan. Among those were city Mayor Michael Cherepko and state Rep. Bill Kortz, Democrat of Dravosburg, who said in their court filing that fracturing the present 45th District would hamper efforts to "unify the communities in the historic Mon Valley region."

"It's nice that the Supreme Court recognized that common people and common areas should not be split up," Brewster, a McKeesport Democrat, said Thursday. "When the majority party has control of the process, we know that they'll try to improve their standing. But this map was not drawn fairly."

Although the court has not issued its full, written decision, Brewster expects the current districts to be frozen until after this year's elections. State legislators are elected every two years.

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"My understanding is that we will be remanded back to the old map, there will be a new map drawn, and all members will have to run in the new districts in 2014," said Brewster, whose 45th Senatorial District was to be moved to the Poconos region.

Most constituents in the current 45th District would have been divided between state senators Tim Solobay of Canonsburg and Sen. Jay Costa of Forest Hills, while some would have been moved into the district represented by state Sen. Jim Ferlo, a Democrat from Pittsburgh's Lawrenceville neighborhood.

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The map was approved Oct. 31 along party lines by the state Legislative Reapportionment Commission, a five-member panel comprised of three Republicans and two Democrats.

There are 50 Senate and 203 House districts in Pennsylvania. New legislative maps must be drawn every 10 years, following a U.S. Census, in an attempt to keep districts evenly balanced in population. The Pittsburgh area was expected to suffer in this redistricting because of population losses in the western half of the state.

However, Article II, Section 16 of the state Constitution says that house and senate districts "shall be composed of compact and contiguous territory as nearly equal in population as practicable" and that "unless absolutely necessary no county, city, incorporated town, borough, township or ward shall be divided in forming either a senatorial or representative district."

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Democrats had complained that under the Republican proposal, one borough was divided among as many as three different legislators.

The League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania has argued that the practice, known as "gerrymandering," was designed to keep legislators in safe districts, where they would lack competition. "We applaud the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision," said Olivia Thorne, president of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania. "It is a real victory for Pennsylvania Voters and reinforces the need to replace the Commonwealth's broken redistricting system with one that puts the interests of the voters first."


a statement released last night, Costa, who also serves as state Senate Democratic Leader, said he was "pleased to learn that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the many petitioners who filed an appeal to the Legislative Reapportionment Commission's final plan."

Costa was a member of the commission, along with former Superior Court Judge Stephen J. McEwen Jr., Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, and House Minority Leader Frank Dermody. McEwen was appointed by the Supreme Court to chair the commission back in April 2011.

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"It is the responsibility of the reapportionment commission to devise a plan that is true to both the Constitution and the voters of Pennsylvania," Costa said. "Counties and communities must have their voices heard in Harrisburg, and our goal was to make sure that the 2011 redistricting process achieved that."

State Sen. John Yudichak, a Democrat from Luzerne County, noted that in many states, independent commissions redraw legislative maps.

"The principled, unbiased approach that states such as Iowa and others have adopted needs serious consideration in Pennsylvania," says Yudichak, who has introduced a bill that would put the redistricting process into the hands of a nonpartisan group. "Voters, not politicians in Harrisburg, should decide election outcomes."

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A spokesman for Turzai, a Republican from Bradford Woods, told the Tribune-Review the map "met the standards and conditions set forth in the Constitution," but that the party would have no further comment until they got a full ruling from the Supreme Court.

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According to published reports, three Democrats on the Supreme Court --- Max Baer, Seamus P. McCaffery and Debra McCloskey Todd --- ruled against the plan, along with Chief Justice Ronald Castille, a Republican. The dissenting votes were cast by Republican Justices J. Michael Eakin, Joan Orie Melvin and Thomas Saylor. (Read the dissenting opinion.)

Yudichak called it a "prudent ... bipartisan decision" to "send legislative redistricting back to the drawing board."

On Nov. 29, Brewster submitted petitions signed by more than 2,000 voters who opposed the relocation of the 45th Senatorial District. But he said on Thursday that he had tried to be patient while the court decided the fate of the map --- and his seat.

"No one else but me thought the Supreme Court would do this," he said, adding, with a laugh, "I've stayed quiet on this, and you know that's not easy for me to do."

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