The 2-1 federal court decision striking down Wisconsin’s redistricting plans for the state legislature as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander, Whitford v. Gil, is without doubt the most significant lower federal court decision on partisan gerrymandering the lower courts have ever … Continue reading
Category Archives: redistricting
Back in February it was reported that the Wisconsin legislature was bringing in Paul Clement to work on the partisan gerrymandering case. Last week the Wisconsin DOJ filed its jurisdictional statement (the equivalent of a cert. petition for an appeal). … Continue reading
Response. … Continue reading
Michael Parsons: I agree with Pildes and Elias that Bethune-Hill is a significant decision that is likely to have profound consequences. But is this big news also good news? We’ll see. Many leading authorities foresee the Supreme Court growing increasingly … Continue reading
David Daley for WaPo’s Post Everything. … Continue reading
James Matson oped in the SF Chronicle: A much-anticipated U.S. Supreme Court showdown soon will decide whether America’s major political parties can continue to rig American elections without violating the Constitution. The case of Whitford vs. Gill will test the court’s … Continue reading
Michael Li blogs. … Continue reading
Press Release Brief … Continue reading
Motion. … Continue reading
Rick Casey in the San Antonio Express-News. … Continue reading
Ryan D. Williamson, Michael Crespin, Maxwell Palmer and Barry C. Edwards for The Monkey Cage: Overall, independent redistricting commissions have done a better job at avoiding gerrymandering, as measured by these three traditional criteria. As a result, districts drawn by … Continue reading
AP: A judge on Thursday dismissed the final challenge to Arizona’s congressional and legislative district maps drawn by an independent commission in 2012. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Roger Brodman dismissed the challenge to the congressional map brought by a … Continue reading
I asked Michael Li, who knows Texas redistricting issues as well as anyone, to explain some of the confusion surrounding the next stages of the case. The following guest post is very informative: What’s Next in the Texas Redistricting Case? Last Friday’s … Continue reading
Jim Malewitz for Texas Tribune. … Continue reading
Manny Fernandez for the NYT. Here is my analysis of the court ruling from over the weekend. … Continue reading
Politico reports. … Continue reading
Last night I linked to the extensive ruling and findings of fact and conclusions of law in a very long-running dispute about whether Texas’s congressional districting were a violation of the Voting Rights Act and/or the Constitution. I have now … Continue reading
The long awaited lengthy opinion on the congressional plan, with a dissent by Judge Smith, is here. The numerous findings of fact and conclusions of law are here. (The court has not released findings yet on the state House challenge). … Continue reading
WABE: Thousands of metro Atlanta voters would find themselves in different state House districts under a Republican plan that Democrats allege reduces the influence of minority voters. Similar moves in other states have been challenged in federal courts, according to … Continue reading
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Georgia House Republicans made a late bid Friday to change the district boundaries for eight Republicans and one Democrat. The one Democrat, Rep. Sheila Jones, D-Atlanta, is not happy. Jones said she didn’t know about House Bill 515 until it … Continue reading
Ouch! … Continue reading
They are going to be piling up as we expect the Supreme Court to take up the Wisconsin case next term. Today’s latest opinion, in Common Cause v. Rucho, is unanimous and discusses the efficiency gap. which plays a big … Continue reading
NYT WaPo AP Bloomberg LAT USA Today Reuters WSJ HuffPo Amy Howe (SCOTUSBlog) Politico More to come … Continue reading
The Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Kennedy (joined by the Court’s liberals and Chief Justice Roberts) has affirmed in part and reversed in part the Virginia racial gerrymandering case, Bethune-Hill v. Va. State Board of Elections. Justice Alito concurred … Continue reading
Phys.org: Pennsylvania’s congressional district maps are almost certainly the result of gerrymandering according to an analysis based on a new mathematical theorem on bias in Markov Chains developed by Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh mathematicians. Their findings are … Continue reading
This is a big deal. (Background on why the Court will likely hear the case on the merits.) Will Justice Kennedy agree to police partisan gerrymandering as his parting gift from SCOTUS? … Continue reading
Chris Elmendorf has posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract: For decades, legal attacks on partisan gerrymanders have foundered on a manageability dilemma: doctrinal standards the Supreme Court has regarded as judicially discoverable have been rejected as unmanageable, … Continue reading
For more than the last decade, since the Supreme Court decided Vieth v. Jubelirer, plaintiffs have been angling to get another case raising the question before the Supreme Court. In Vieth, Justice Kennedy sided with the dissenters in holding that partisan gerrymandering … Continue reading
The next few days should be great at this event. I’ll be presenting Race or Party, Party as Race, or Party All the Time: Three Uneasy Approaches to Conjoined Polarization In Redistricting and Voting Cases. … Continue reading
At Rick (Hasen)’s request, I wanted to add just a bit to Rick (Pildes)’s original post on the new paper by Jowei Chen and David Cottrell, proposing a means to assess the net partisan consequences of congressional redistricting. Given the inevitable … Continue reading
New blog post at the Library of Congress: Gerrymandering is a current political topic today; as always, it is usually initiated by the incumbents to retain or increase their power. When gerrymandering is taught in U.S. history classes, it is … Continue reading
Bernie Grofman at The Monkey Cage (and to be clear, the Supreme Court has not yet agreed to hear any case raising these issues): If, in 2017, the court does not specify a manageable standard for identifying unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering, … Continue reading
Carolina Public Press reports. … Continue reading
I have posted this draft on SSRN, for the forthcoming symposium on Redistricting after 2020 at William and Mary. I think this piece brings together a lot of my thinking (and others’ thinking) on the “race or party” question in … Continue reading
McGann, Smith, Latner, and Keena for The Monkey Cage: In our book, we show that the partisan symmetry standard can be logically derived from the equal treatment of individual voters, based on recent results in social choice theory. In partisan … Continue reading
Patrick Marley. … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
The three-judge court considering the Wisconsin partisan gerrymandering case, Whitford v. Nichols, has issued this remedial order in the Wisconsin gerrymandering case. It requires the Wisconsin legislature to pass a new plan remedying the partisan gerrymandering found by the court … Continue reading
Today’s Court orders contain no order related to North Carolina v. Covington, one of the North Carolina racial gerrymandering cases (and the case involving the special election for 2017 ordered by the district court and put on hold by the Supreme … Continue reading
In a 457 page opinion (including appendices) by Trump #SCOTUS shortlister William Pryor, a three-judge federal district court in the Alabama racial gerrymandering case has struck down 12 challenged Alabama districts as unconstitutional. Judge Myron Thompson, in a separate 120-page … Continue reading
Although the Court granted cert. in two cases today, no word yet on the Texas redistricting case (now up at three conferences) or the North Carolina racial gerrymandering case. There was a chance the Court could have acted on this … Continue reading
March 2-3 redistricting conference at Duke. … Continue reading
Ariane de Vogue for CNN: Even before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, top Democrats — including President Barack Obama — are already launching efforts to reshape the electoral landscape. Faced with a stinging loss at the polls, a conservative-leaning Supreme Court and … Continue reading
NYT: Mr. Holder said his initiative would unfold on three fronts: In court, where Democrats will challenge Republican-drawn maps they see as violating the law; on the campaign trail, where they will seek to win offices that influence redistricting; and … Continue reading
NYT reports. My earlier analyses are here and here. … Continue reading
Earlier today, I blogged about the surprise order of the Supreme Court today putting a hold on 2017 special elections in North Carolina legislative districts ordered by a three judge court after a finding that the districts were unconstitutional racial … Continue reading
In (what I consider to be) a surprising development, the Supreme Court has issued this order calling off special elections in North Carolina which had been ordered by a three-judge court following a finding of racial gerymandering. It is possible … Continue reading
Download here. … Continue reading
Order: Text Order DENYING [1338] Motion for Entry of Judgment under Rule 54(b) entered by Judge Xavier Rodriguez. This case involves a voluminous record. As movants acknowledge within this motion, “The litigants in this cause have had two trials totaling … Continue reading
Ross Ramsey for the Texas Tribune. … Continue reading