UCLA Voting Rights Project Experts Argue, Wrongly in My View, that the California Legislature Could Engage in Re-Redistricting California’s Congressional Districts without Voter Approval

direct democracy, redistricting

What a difference half a day makes.

Contrary to the earlier reporting from Politico that California Democrats might try to call a special election to get voter approval for a Democratic gerrymander of congressional districts (to counter the expected Texas Republican gerrymander), the latest from Politico suggests that Democrats may try to re-redistrict through ordinary legislation. I don’t think they have the power to do so, given the unequivocal language taking away that power from the Legislature in two voter initiatives amending the state constitution to establish a redistricting commission and to apply it to both state legislative and congressional redistricting. (In California, voter initiated ballot measures can only be amended by another vote of the people, unless the measure provides otherwise.)

Here’s the latest from Politico:

Call it the Fleetwood Mac option: California lawmakers could go their own way on a Democratic gerrymandering bid.

Redistricting experts have been briefing elections committee staff in the Legislature on a redraw strategy that would enlarge Democrats’ House margin without voter approval, Playbook has learned. That would avert an expensive and uncertain special election — saving Newsom and allies money for other ballot battles — but it would push Democratic lawmakers into uncharted legal terrain.

Voters bequeathed California its independent House redistricting commission in 2010, and because only voters can substantially amend ballot initiatives once they’ve passed, they may need to sign off on Newsom’s plan to redraw a few California House Republicans into oblivion.

Or they may not.

Newsom has argued there’s another option: simply having the Legislature craft new maps. He’s noted that California’s constitution is silent on mid-decade redistricting (as opposed to the once-a-decade commission process linked to the Census). Now UCLA Voting Rights Project experts are bolstering that argument to the Legislature.

Their legal analysis, shared exclusively with POLITICO after it was presented to legislative staffers this week, argues the Legislature “has the legal constitutional authority to draw new districts today” if it deems it “appropriate” — as Newsom and other Democrats have argued.

None of this means the Legislature will decide to circumvent voters. Attorney General Rob Bonta suggested yesterday that the cleanest route would be lawmakers putting a new map on the ballot. That would give Democrats political cover and help inoculate them from the legal challenge that would inevitably follow if the Legislature simply goes it alone — a path that could end in an embarrassing court rebuke.

The legal analysis engages in a kind of wooden textualism which I think is not in line with either the plain text of these ballot measures as a whole nor the clear purpose of both statutes to take the matter away of redistricting away from the state legislature. And I don’t think California courts will buy it if the Legislature takes this gambit.

There is an argument that fairness in congressional redistricting needs to be considered on a national basis, and that Democratic tit-for-tat gerrymanders to counter Republican gerrymanders are otherwise justified. I’m not endorsing that argument nor rejecting it. I’m saying that as far as California goes, there is a clean way to do it, as AG Bonta suggested, is taking the matter back to the voters. And I think that’s the right way to do it. Let the voters decide.

(Note: Although I am at UCLA, I have no role with the UCLA Voting Rights Project and had no hand in this memo.)

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Georgia: “State Election Board accuses Lyft of violating the law by offering discounted rides to the polls”

vote buying

News from the States:

Georgia’s State Election Board has accused the rideshare company Lyft of violating Georgia’s election law by offering discounted rides to users who were heading to the polls.

At a Tuesday meeting, the board voted 3-1 to issue a letter to Lyft, alleging that the company violated a provision of Georgia’s election code that prohibits “giving or receiving, offering to give or receive, or participating in the giving or receiving of money or gifts for registering as a voter, voting, or voting for a particular candidate.” 

Violating the law is a felony offense, though the board is not issuing a fine or referring the case for criminal prosecution.

The incident stems from a series of two complaints filed by a Georgia resident ahead of  the 2022 general election, flagging programs dedicated to providing transportation to the polls as potential election law violations. The first complaint was aimed at Rideshare2vote, a left-learning nonprofit dedicated to increasing turnout among Democratic voters. The second complaint was lodged against Lyft, which has been involved in voter outreach efforts across the country for the past decade. 

A subsequent investigation conducted by the secretary of state’s office found that although Rideshare2vote stated that its goals were to turn out more Democratic voters, the organization provided free rides and did not turn away voters of any political affiliation. Rideshare2vote also instructed its volunteers not to ask voters about their political affiliation or urge them to support any parties or candidates. The board voted to dismiss a complaint against Rideshare2vote Tuesday.

Lyft’s voter outreach program, which provided discounted — rather than free — rides to the polls for voters across the state, proved to be a trickier issue….

Johnston also highlighted a potential lack of access to rideshare services like Lyft in rural parts of the state, and claimed that offering discount codes to voters amounted to “vote hauling,” or buying votes….

Secretary of state investigator Michael Brunson recommended that the complaint be dismissed, noting that similar cases have been dismissed by the board in the past. However, Johnston and another Trump-aligned member of the board, Janelle King, pushed for more action to be taken. The board will issue a letter of instruction to Lyft in the coming weeks….

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“Despite grand claims, a new report shows noncitizen voting hasn’t materialized”

chicanery, election administration, fraudulent fraud squad

Miles Parks for NPR:

After President Trump and many other Republicans warned that vast numbers of non-U.S. citizens would influence last year’s election, states and law enforcement have devoted more resources than ever before to root out those ineligible voters.

More than six months into Trump’s second term, they haven’t found much.

New research out Wednesday tracking state government efforts across the country confirms what election experts have said all along: Noncitizen voting occasionally happens but in minuscule numbers, and not in any coordinated way.

“Noncitizens are not a large threat to our election system currently,” said David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research (CEIR), which conducted the research. “Even states that are looking everywhere to try to amplify the numbers of noncitizens … when they actually look, they find a surprisingly, shockingly small number.”

CEIR spent roughly four months reviewing states’ public disclosures about noncitizen voting, stretching back years. The organization shared its findings with NPR exclusively.

The report shows a wide disparity in how states have investigated the issue and what data officials in those states choose to make public. Many states have released no information, even though it’s illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections and all voting officials do some type of maintenance to their voter rolls.

Some states, such as Michigan and Georgia, have undertaken audits of their entire voter rolls, using resources from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to check for noncitizens. Michigan officials announced in April that a review found that “cases of noncitizens casting a ballot in Michigan elections are extremely rare.” The review found more than a dozen noncitizens appear to have illegally voted in the 2024 general election. That’s 0.00028% of the state’s total votes….

No state has found any coordinated effort to get noncitizens to vote in the 2024 election.

When UCLA election law professor Rick Hasen was presented with the CEIR findings, he said he wasn’t “surprised in the slightest.”

“It really is not a big problem, both because on the individual level, it would be hard to get noncitizens to agree to it,” Hasen said. “And on the broader level, it’s just not a very cost-effective way to try to steal an election.”

Election officials note there are safeguards to prevent noncitizens from registering to vote, but the biggest deterrent is the fact that immigrants without legal status generally don’t want to risk deportation to cast one ballot — especially because the inherent paper trail of voting makes it very easy to get caught.

Separate research has found that when noncitizens do register to vote, it’s often due to bureaucratic errors or a misunderstanding about eligibility, as opposed to intentional fraud.

Still, the noncitizen voting myth has persisted for more than 100 years in American elections. Hasen expects it to come up again in 2026, even if states don’t find any data to support it.

“Most people who make claims that noncitizen voting is a big problem are doing so for political purposes,” Hasen said. “It’s a way of demonizing immigrants. It’s a way of trying to claim that Democrats cheat. And no amount of evidence is going to stop people from making politically expedient claims.”

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“How Conservative Christians Cracked a 70-Year-Old Law”

tax law and election law

NYT deep dive:

Earlier this month, the Internal Revenue Service reinterpreted the ban, known as the Johnson Amendment, saying for the first time that churches could endorse candidates from the pulpit. The change, which came via a legal settlement, functionally nullifies a core tenet of the law, giving Christian conservatives their most significant victory involving church political organizing in 70 years. Their ultimate goal is still to totally eliminate the law, through Congress or the Supreme Court, removing all its limits on their political activities.

“Now churches are free,” said Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, which has been working to challenge the law for years. “The leash is gone.”

The I.R.S.’s new approach is the latest in a string of triumphs for conservative Christian groups, which are leveraging their alliance with Mr. Trump to redraw boundaries between church and state.

For now, the implications of this latest victory are unclear. On paper, the new I.R.S. policy appears narrow. It grants more freedom only to houses of worship, which the agency already seemed disinclined to police.

The ban on endorsements by churches and other tax-exempt groups dates to 1954, when it was inserted into a tax bill by Lyndon B. Johnson, then a senator, bypassing any debate on the matter. His motives were hardly lofty: Mr. Johnson was reacting to efforts by nonprofits that were supporting his rival in a primary.

The Johnson Amendment became an enduring part of nonprofit law, seen by some as an appropriate wall between charities and churches and the dirty business of politics.

But many conservative Christian activists — as well as some independent legal scholars — saw it as a violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech….

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“Texas House Republicans unveil new congressional map that looks to pick up five GOP seats”

redistricting, Voting Rights Act

Texas Tribune:

Texas GOP lawmakers released their first draft of the state’s new congressional map Wednesday, proposing revamped district lines that attempt to flip five Democratic seats in next year’s midterm elections.

The new map targets Democratic members of Congress in the Austin, Dallas and Houston metro areas and in South Texas. The draft, unveiled by Corpus Christi Republican Rep. Todd Hunter, will likely change before the final map is approved by both chambers and signed by Gov. Greg Abbott. Democrats have said they might try to thwart the process by fleeing the state.

This unusual mid-decade redistricting comes after a pressure campaign waged by President Donald Trump’s political team in the hopes of padding Republicans’ narrow majority in the U.S. House.

Currently, Republicans hold 25 of Texas’ 38 House seats. Trump carried 27 of those districts in 2024, including those won by Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar of Laredo and Vicente Gonzalez of McAllen.

Under the proposed new lines, 30 districts would have gone to Trump last year, each by at least 10 percentage points.

The districts represented by Cuellar and Gonzalez — both of which are overwhelmingly Hispanic and anchored in South Texas — would become slightly more favorable to Republicans. Trump received 53% and 52% in those districts, respectively, in 2024; under the new proposed lines, he would have gotten almost 55% in both districts….

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“How Newsom could redraw career ambitions”

redistricting

California Playbook:

MAPPING IT OUT: The potential contours of a snap California redistrict are coming into focus (more on the politics of that exercise below).

Attorney General Rob Bonta suggested yesterday that lawmakers could put a new, fully realized map before voters for up-or-down approval. ”I think that’s what’s being contemplated here and I think that’s what the legal pathway is,” Bonta told reporters, noting he’d been in touch with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office. Remember, Bonta’s office would write an initiative’s official title and summary.

Newsom has said he’s reviewing three or four options to proceed, including simply having the Legislature draw lines on the theory it retains the authority to do so despite California’s independent commission. But Bonta’s remarks suggest a special election could be the smoothest path — though it would still be a bumpy one. Speaking of which …

MAPMAKING MELEE — Newsom’s push for a Democrat-boosting California gerrymander would have to run through the Legislature — where it could collide with lawmakers’ career plans.

Few prizes tantalize term-limited state lawmakers quite like a safe House seat that’s effectively a lifetime gig. But returning to a bygone era of redistricting hardball could complicate life for ambitious incumbents redrawing the seats they hope to one day represent. California voters chose in 2010 to sideline self-interested politicians from the map-making process; restoring their role, as the governor wants to do, reopens some of those old incentives.

“I’ve seen the negotiations. I’ve seen all the arm-twisting that Willie (Brown) and Phil Burton had to do,” said Bruce Cain, who helped craft maps for the former Democratic leaders. Burton, he added, “had to browbeat people into things they wouldn’t want to do.”

For now, California Democrats are publicly rallying behind a national push to counter Texas’ planned GOP gerrymander. Even frontline House members are saying Democrats have to be armed with every option.

But it’s one thing to proclaim your support for a plan embraced by party grandees like Newsom and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Getting 54 Assembly votes and 27 Senate votes for new maps is a different matter. Some of the Democrats who will be asked to vote for the gambit will have to balance personal plans and party priorities.

Rarely does a vote in the state Legislature so directly tie into national politics or draw in national figures….

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