Category Archives: redistricting

No vacation w/o voting reform

July 30, 2021, 6:37 pmredistrictingNed Foley

So argue Dave Daley and Mike Parsons: “Whatever else Democrats decide to do with election reform before the recess, they should put partisan gerrymandering to a vote ASAP.” I agree wholeheartedly that Congress needs to act now to ban… Continue reading

Dems Attempt to Jumpstart S1

July 29, 2021, 7:00 pmelection administration, redistricting, votingNed Foley

NY Times: Meeting at the White House, maybe. “Democrats are close to finalizing a scaled-back bill that activists hope could be a battering ram in the fight over the filibuster.” I still wonder whether the better filibuster strategy is… Continue reading

S1 v2: Senate revisits electoral reform

July 28, 2021, 11:55 amelection administration, political polarization, redistricting, voting, Voting Rights ActNed Foley

Washington Post reports on today’s meeting among Senate Democrats to bring forward new version of S1, the For the People Act, building upon Senator Manchin’s compromise proposal. There’s also the possibility of new provisions aimed at election subversion. But there’s… Continue reading

The GOP & the VRA: Frenemies?

July 26, 2021, 7:08 pmDepartment of Justice, redistricting, Supreme Court, Voting Rights ActNed Foley

A reader of the blog sent along a link to this article: How to Win a “Long Game”: The Voting Rights Act, the Republican Party, and the Politics of Counter‐Enforcement. Here’s the abstract: ADRIENNE JONES and ANDREW POLSKY examine… Continue reading

NFRPP Discussion of S1/HR1

July 26, 2021, 3:53 pmelection subversion risk, redistricting, votingNed Foley

The Network for Responsible Public Policy last week hosted a discussion on the current status, and future prospects, of the For the People Act, still pending in the Senate as S1 (having been enacted by the House as HR1). Dan… Continue reading

Competitive Districts Part II: Colorado’s Independent Redistricting Commission

July 26, 2021, 11:00 amredistricting, UncategorizedRichard Pildes

Now that I’ve described in Part I how DRA enables assessing a map’s competitiveness, along with other dimensions, I’ll lay out how DRA makes it possible to compare different maps. To do that, I’ll compare the preliminary map for the… Continue reading

Designing Competitive Redistricting Maps: Part I

July 26, 2021, 6:07 amredistricting, UncategorizedRichard Pildes

Colorado’s congressional districts are being drawn by an independent redistricting commission created in 2018 by “Amendment Y,” a legislatively referred constitutional amendment that voters approved. That amendment also specifies the criteria the commission is to use. After specifying that districts… Continue reading

State-Districts Competitiveness Gap

July 25, 2021, 3:52 pmredistrictingNed Foley

Axios has a report on a data project that Election Law at Ohio State (ELOSU) is pursuing. The idea is to compare how competitive the House districts in a state are as a group versus the competitiveness of the state… Continue reading

The latest on battle for electoral reform

July 22, 2021, 7:32 pmelection subversion risk, redistrictingNed Foley

NY Times reports on the divide among Democrats. I continue to believe that the short-term strategy should be a stand-alone bill focused solely on combatting partisan gerrymandering, to test the possibility of getting 60 votes in the Senate. If there… Continue reading

House Hardball, part 2

July 22, 2021, 12:00 pmredistricting, UncategorizedgerrymanderingNed Foley

Nick Stephanopoulos makes some fair points in response to my post on whether, in the absence of a new Act of Congress, the House can or should refuse to seat winning candidates solely on the ground that their districts were… Continue reading

Report on the Georgia hearing; what’s next?

July 19, 2021, 7:39 pmelection subversion risk, redistricting, voting, Voting Rights ActNed Foley

Washington Post summarizes. Given the Republican non-participation, this doesn’t sound like an effective strategy to overcome a filibuster. USA Today reports that Senate Democrats, essentially abandoning S1, will turn instead to VRA reform “this autumn”; if true, this presumably… Continue reading

NJ redistricting: 13 is an unlucky number this time

July 19, 2021, 12:18 pmpolitical parties, political polarization, redistrictingNed Foley

“This is the first time the two parties haven’t agreed on a 13th member for congressional redistricting.” That, for me, is the key quote from this report on the need for the state’s Supreme Court to pick the thirteenth member… Continue reading

Deep dive on Arizona redistricting this cycle

July 19, 2021, 8:07 amredistrictingNed Foley

From Carrie Levine at the Center for Public Integrity.

Good morning. Georgia on my mind.

July 19, 2021, 6:22 amelection administration, redistricting, voting, Voting Rights ActSenateNed Foley

Thanks, Dan, we so miss you at Ohio State, but are glad to reconnect whenever there’s an opportunity. Thanks, Rick, for this opportunity to join the ELB blogging team. As I start, the Senate Rules Committee hearing today is top… Continue reading