I think this new draft is going to be important to the field. Theoretical Foundations and Empirical Evaluations of Partisan Fairness in District-Based Democracies Citation: Jonathan N. Katz, Gary King, and Elizabeth Rosenblatt. Working Paper. “Theoretical Foundations and Empirical … Continue reading

Politico: Democratic legislative leaders are preparing to diminish the power of their state party chairman as well as Republicans — if they can get New Jersey voters to go along with them. Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Craig… Continue reading

Courthouse News Service: Los Angeles residents did not adequately show race was the main factor in the last round of redistricting or that the districts were redrawn to benefit the LA City Council’s current president, a Ninth Circuit panel held… Continue reading

Plain Dealer: As Ohio Republicans won the race for every statewide executive job from the governor on down this year, something different happened in lower-profile races. The Democrats ran much more competitive in total votes for the 116 Ohio… Continue reading

Mark Joseph Stern: North Carolina Republicans have spent the last eight years ruthlessly undermining democracy in their state. The key to their extraordinary success is a series of partisan gerrymanders that dilute the power of Democrats’ vote, allowing the GOP… Continue reading

Here’s a guest post from Mike Parsons: The Supreme Court today agreed to hear Va. House of Delegates v. Bethune-Hill (“Bethune-Hill II”) and directed the parties to brief whether Appellants have standing.  This racial gerrymandering case challenging 12 Virginia… Continue reading

Release: Today, Common Cause, the North Carolina Democratic Party, and a group of individual North Carolina voters are suing the state of North Carolina over the partisan gerrymandering of legislative maps for both chambers of the North Carolina General Assembly.… Continue reading

Charles Lane WaPo column.  Even though I’ve been ambivalent about whether courts should intervene to stop gerrymanders on federal constitutional grounds, I find very unpersuasive the argument that a wave election shows that federal intervention is unnecessary.

William Adler and Stuart Thompson NYT oped, with some very informative graphics.

Hi, all.  Justin here. On Tuesday, voters in Colorado, Michigan, and maybe Utah (it’s still too close to call) approved ballot initatives changing the process for drawing state legislative and congressional lines, and voters in Missouri approved an initiative changing… Continue reading