Michael Li explains:
Category Archives: redistricting
“The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Redistricting Commissions in the 2021 Cycle”
Sam Wang and Zacharia Sippy have posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy). here is the abstract:
In the last decade, redistricting commissions have proliferated across the United States as a means of reducing partisan gerrymandering. This article provides a comprehensive evaluation of their performance through both qualitative and quantitative analysis. Drawing on redistricting data from all fifty states between 2021 and 2024, we analyze how different commission designs impact partisan fairness, competitiveness, and adherence to traditional principles like compactness and preservation of communities of interest. Our analysis reveals that autonomous commissions with final map-drawing authority, balanced bipartisan processes with multiple non-partisan actors, and binding judicial review consistently produced redistricting plans with lower partisan bias and higher electoral competition. These successful commissions were typically established through popular ballot initiatives. Conversely, commissions serving only in an advisory role or lacking clear judicial oversight frequently saw their work undermined by legislatures pursuing partisan advantage. We conclude that autonomous commissions, created by and composed of citizens, provide the most effective available approach for curbing gerrymandering. The article concludes with recommendations for expanding the commission model for the 2030 redistricting cycle.
“Analysis: How redistricting helped Nevada Democrats — but not enough to gain supermajority”
The Nevada Independent goes deep on redistricting in Nevada — one of only four states, I believe, with no constraints in state law on how the lines are drawn.
“Ohioans Reject Redistricting Reform, Protecting GOP Gerrymanders”
Ohioans on Tuesday rejected Issue 1, a ballot measure that would have created a new independent redistricting commission and stripped elected politicians of their power to draw congressional and legislative districts.
The result is a blow to the democracy organizations that have been combating gerrymandering in the state. They mobilized on behalf of Issue 1 after the lengthy legal standoff with Ohio Republicans in 2022, when the GOP, in a repeat of the prior decade, drew maps that locked in comfortable majorities for their candidates.
It’s also a repeat of two prior defeats for similar ballot measures that would have created independent commissions in both 2005 and 2012.
“It’s incredibly sad, and it’s not clear to me what the next steps are to improve our democracy,” said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause, an organization that was part of the coalition that collected hundreds of thousands of signatures that qualify Issue 1 for the ballot. “Addressing gerrymandering is so much about holding elected officials accountable and creating fair districts and fair elections so that we can actually have a functional government.”
As of publication, the measure is trailing by roughly eight percentage points, with some ballots remaining to be counted.
While several polls in October showed Issue 1 with very large leads, those surveys were simply asking voters if they wanted to create an independent redistricting commission. The official language Ohioans saw on their ballot was very different: GOP officials wrote an official summary that characterized the measure as requiring gerrymandering rather than restricting it. A rare poll that tested the official language found the race effectively tied….
Ranked Choice Voting Measures on Track to Lose in at Least Some States; Redistricting Reform Goes Down in Ohio
Breaking: Supreme Court Will Hear Louisiana Racial Gerrymandering Case, with Implications for Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act
The Court noted probable jurisdiction both the state’s and the LDF’s appeals. The cases are consolidated for argument. It will present another opportunity for the Court to address the “race or party” problem endemic in these racial gerrymandering cases.
“Anti-Gerrymandering Groups Warn That Ohio’s Ballot Language Is Misleading Voters”
New at Bolts.
“How Gerrymandering Tilts the 2024 Race for the House”
New Brennan Center analysis: “Some of this decade’s congressional maps are models of fairness; others are decidedly not. Both parties engaged in gerrymandering after the 2020 census, but, overall, the bias in this cycle’s maps strongly favors Republicans due primarily to aggressive gerrymandering in GOP strongholds in the South and Midwest. In total, the Brennan Center estimates that this gerrymandering will give Republicans an advantage of around 16 House seats in the 2024 race to control Congress compared to fair maps.”
“Mississippi can wait to reset legislative districts that dilute Black voting strength, judges say”
AP, on yesterday’s order in Mississippi State Conference of NAACP v. State Board of Election Commissioners:
Mississippi can wait until next year to redraw some of its legislative districts to replace ones where Black voting power is currently diluted, three federal judges said Thursday.
The decision updates a timeline from the judges, who issued a ruling July 2 that found problems with districts in three parts of the state — a ruling that will require multiple House and Senate districts to be reconfigured. The judges originally said they wanted new districts set before the regular legislative session begins in January.
Their decision Thursday means Mississippi will not hold special legislative elections this November on the same day as the presidential election. It also means current legislators are likely to serve half of the four-year term in districts where the judges found that Black voters’ voices are diminished.
More on this story from Mississippi Today.
“Growing number of US states target ‘prison gerrymandering’”
Reuters reports that more than a dozen states and 200 localities have moved to end or change the practice of counting people where they’re incarcerated instead of where they’re from: “The Prison Policy Initiative (PPI), which has closely tracked and worked on the issue for decades, estimates that roughly half of the US population now lives in a city, county, or state that has moved to end or restrict prison gerrymandering.”
“Federal court declines to dismiss Alabama redistricting case after South Carolina ruling”
Alabama Reflector: “The three-judge panel overseeing the legal battle in Allen v. Milligan, which led to the creation of two congressional districts in Alabama with majority or near-majority Black populations, last week rejected a motion from the Alabama Secretary of State to dismiss the case.”
Utah Supreme Court Rules for League of Women Voters in Case to Reinstate Nonpartisan Redistricting Initiative
Here’s the opinion in League of Women Voters v. Utah State Legislature (h/t Ballot Access News). A key excerpt:
The novel question before us asks: what happens when Utahns use their initiative power to exercise their “right to alter or reform their government” by passing an initiative that contains government reforms, and the Legislature repeals it and replaces it with another law that eliminates the reforms the people voted for? . . . .
[W]e hold that when Utahns exercise their right to reform the government through a citizen initiative, their exercise of these rights is protected from government infringement. This means that government-reform initiatives are constitutionally protected from unfettered legislative amendment, repeal, or replacement. Although the Legislature has authority to amend or repeal statutes, it is well settled that legislative action cannot unduly infringe or restrain the exercise of constitutional rights. Consequently, when Utahns exercise their right to reform the government through an initiative, this limits the Legislature’s authority to amend or repeal the initiative. . . .
In this case, Plaintiffs claim. . . that Utahns used their initiative power as a means of exercising their right to reform the government when they passed Proposition 4. And they claim that the Legislature violated those rights when it enacted S.B. 200, which repealed Proposition 4 and replaced it with a new law that nullified Proposition 4’s key provisions. The Legislature’s general legislative power to amend, repeal, and enact statutes does not defeat this claim as a matter of law.
Update: The AP has this story, with more background on yesterday’s decision.
Redistricting Reform in Colorado
From Princeton’s Innovations for Successful Societies, this report by Al Vanderlipp. Here’s the abstract:
In Colorado, as in most US states, politicians long controlled the process of drawing federal- and state-level legislative districts and manipulated district boundaries to secure political advantage. Dismayed by the tug-of-war that the process unleashed during the 2001 and 2011 redistricting cycles, in March 2015 a bipartisan group of former legislators assembled a coalition to promote adoption of an independent citizen redistricting commission. The coalition could pursue two routes to enactment: either it could get its proposal onto the ballot through Colorado’s citizen initiative process, or it could try to win support in both chambers of the state legislature. Both routes were difficult, and success depended on offering a model that would appeal to political heavyweights, advocacy groups, both major parties, and a growing contingent of politically independent voters. The Democratic Party was all but certain to control the next redistricting process, and it would not give up that advantage without a fight. To succeed, Fair Districts Colorado would have to cooperate and compromise with the party’s progressive wing. After collaborating with progressives to create a shared proposal and after launching a statewide communications campaign, well-connected coalition members were able to convince all members of both of the legislative chambers to put two constitutional amendments for an independent redistricting process in front of voters, who approved them in a landslide in 2018. In 2021, the inaugural Colorado Independent Congressional and Legislative Redistricting Commissions convened and created maps that scored well on metrics of competitiveness and representation despite having to work under challenging time constraints as well as pandemic-related logistical complications.
“This House race reflects how the Supreme Court has narrowed options for Black voters”
Patrick Marley of WaPo has this piece on South Carolina’s 1st CD. An excerpt:
This spring, the Supreme Court signed off on district lines in South Carolina that Republican state lawmakers said they had designed to benefit their party. The 1st District, held for the last four years by Rep. Nancy Mace (R), had previously been competitive but is now ranked solidly Republican by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report after the redrawn lines placed more Republican voters in the district and ensured the share of Black voters would not rise, staying at 17 percent.
A federal three-judge panel last year found that the district lines represented an unconstitutional racial gerrymander that “exiled” to a neighboring district tens of thousands of Black voters who overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. But Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing in Mayfor a six-justice Supreme Court majority consisting entirely of GOP nominees, contended there was little evidence that South Carolina lawmakers had focused on race as they drew lines to maximize a Republican edge. . . .
In South Carolina, the ruling effectively locked in a 6-to-1 House advantage for the GOP in a state that Donald Trump won in 2020 with 55 percent of the vote. The lone Democrat, Rep. James E. Clyburn, is also the only Black South Carolina House member, and his district is the only one in the state with a plurality Black population. Statewide, just over a quarter of the population is African American.