Fascinating read. … Continue reading
Category Archives: redistricting
In earlier posts, and in a Slate piece, I explained that both the original reason for trying to include the citizenship question on the census and Trump’s executive order issued yesterday was to allow states to try to draw districts … Continue reading
Here, at the Public Discourse. … Continue reading
NYT reports. … Continue reading
The following is a guest post from Rebecca Green, part of the symposium on Partisan Gerrymandering after Rucho: The Rucho decision is hard to get your head around. Plaintiffs presented two clean cases with clear “smoking guns”: partisan gerrymanders in which legislators … Continue reading
The following is a guest post from Moon Duchin, part of the symposium on Partisan Gerrymandering after Rucho: Justice Kagan’s dissent in Rucho states in its opening paragraphs: “The majority’s abdication comes just when courts across the country, including those below, have … Continue reading
The following is a guest post from Guy Charles and Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, part of the symposium on Partisan Gerrymandering after Rucho: One would be hard-pressed to find a more hackneyed Supreme Court opinion than Chief Justice Roberts’s majority opinion in Rucho. It … Continue reading
The following is a guest post from Michael Morley, part of the symposium on Partisan Gerrymandering after Rucho: The Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Rucho v. Common Causepresents competing judicial conceptions of American voters. Justice Kagan’s dissent encourages courts to employ … Continue reading
The following is a guest post from Mike Parsons, part of the symposium on Partisan Gerrymandering after Rucho: In holding that partisan gerrymandering claims are not “resolvable according to legal principles” and are “therefore beyond [federal] courts’ jurisdiction,” Chief Justice … Continue reading
The following is a guest post from Justin Levitt, part of the symposium on Partisan Gerrymandering after Rucho: Last Thursday’s Rucho majority opinion brought many indignities. The shadowboxing with strawmen, in the form of proportionality claims no litigant put forward. The … Continue reading
Daniel Nichanian for The Appeal. … Continue reading
The following is a guest post from Rick Pildes, part of the symposium on Partisan Gerrymandering after Rucho: Now that the Supreme Court’s decision means that limits on partisan gerrymandering will have to come from venues such as Independent Redistricting Commissions (IRC) … Continue reading
The following is a guest post from Keith Gaddie, part of the symposium on Partisan Gerrymandering after Rucho: Felix Frankfurter called redistricting a “political thicket” which the federal courts would do well to avoid. And, when the court did dive into … Continue reading
The following is a guest post from Wendy Tam Cho, part of the symposium on Partisan Gerrymandering after Rucho: We have been focused for some time on the Supreme Court’s role in regulating partisan gerrymandering. Now that we know the Supreme Court … Continue reading
It is undeniably good news that the Trump Administration decided to abandon the citizenship question in the face of evidence that it would depress turnout especially among those with noncitizens in a household and in light of the Supreme Court’s … Continue reading
The following is a guest post from Sam Issacharoff, part of the symposium on Partisan Gerrymandering after Rucho: The 33-year search for judicial standards in partisan gerrymandering cases came to a crashing conclusion this Term. As Justice Kagan noted in … Continue reading
The following is a guest post from Franita Tolson, part of the symposium on Partisan Gerrymandering after Rucho: In Rucho v. Common Cause, the Supreme Court held that a partisan gerrymandering claim presented a nonjusticiable political question because of the lack of … Continue reading
The following is a guest post from Bruce Cain, part of the symposium on Partisan Gerrymandering after Rucho: Given all the various ways that the Republicans have gamed election rules in recent years to stay in power, I fully understand … Continue reading
The following is a guest post from Nick Stephanopoulos, part of the symposium on Partisan Gerrymandering after Rucho: Both gerrymandering cases the Court decided this term—Rucho v. Common Cause out of North Carolina, and Lamone v. Benisek out of Maryland—began … Continue reading
The following is a guest post from Deborah Hellman, part of the symposium on Partisan Gerrymandering after Rucho: Last week’s decision in Rucho v. Common Cause rests on the claim that the Supreme Court cannot determine when districting is unfair because … Continue reading
Dallas Morning News: Texas has passed a new law that lets lawmakers conceal their emails and other communications from public scrutiny, as they prepare to redraw the state’s voting maps.The law’s Republican authors, North Texas’ Rep. Charlie Geren and Sen. Kelly … Continue reading
The following is a guest post from Joey Fishkin, part of the symposium on Partisan Gerrymandering after Rucho: When I teach Rucho, I expect it will pair well with Colegrove v. Green, the long-overruled 1946 case in which a closely divided … Continue reading
The following is a guest post from Ned Foley, part of the symposium on Partisan Gerrymandering after Rucho: Partisan gerrymandering should be unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court has ruled otherwise. Anger at Chief Justice Roberts for this 5-4 decision is … Continue reading
AP reports. … Continue reading
The following is a guest post from Michael Solimine, part of the symposium on Partisan Gerrymandering after Rucho: A 5-4 majority of the United States Supreme Court in Common Cause v. Rucho held that challenges to partisan gerrymandering are “political … Continue reading
Reuters reports. … Continue reading
See this post at the LSE US Centre. … Continue reading
The following is a guest post from Travis Crum: In Rucho v. Common Cause, the conservatives on the Supreme Court finally prevailed on their decades-long effort to declare partisan gerrymandering a non-justiciable political question. Rather than add to the legion … Continue reading
I have written this oped for the New York Times. It begins: The Supreme Court decision on Thursday in Rucho v. Common Cause purports to take federal courts out of the business of policingpartisan gerrymanders and leave the issue for states to handle. … Continue reading
Sam Wang blogs. … Continue reading
Rick is otherwise engaged at the moment, so I thought I’d send word: four opinions from SCOTUS this morning, but not the Census or redistricting cases. More opinions coming at 10am ET tomorrow. … Continue reading
Amy Howe chats with the 538 crew. … Continue reading
Greg Stohr for Bloomberg. The U.S. Supreme Court enters the homestretch of its term with looming decisions that could affect the 2020 election and thrust the court even deeper into the nation’s political wars.Between now and the end of June, … Continue reading
More major allegations coming out of the Hofeller hard drives. See this pdf, beginning at Exhibit C, page 7 (page 113 of the pdf). Some snippets from the plaintiff’s letter: … Continue reading
Michael Kang has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Boston College Law Review). Here is the abstract: We live in hyperpartisan times. Democrats and Republicans have not been so bitterly divided along partisan lines since Reconstruction, nor so aggressively hostile … Continue reading
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos won’t have to sit for a deposition in Wisconsin’s gerrymandering case in the short term — and might escape having to testify entirely. A panel of appeals judges blocked a lower court order Tuesday for the Rochester … Continue reading
Mark Joseph Stern for Slate: There are sure to be more revelations from the Hofeller files to come, driving home the downside of using a single consultant to mastermind redistricting across multiple states and decades.For years, Hofeller held an office … Continue reading
Release: Yesterday, Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak signed a bill into law ensuring that people in state prisons will be counted as residents of their home addresses when new legislative districts are drawn. The new law makes Nevada the sixth state to end … Continue reading
The following is a guest post from Wendy Tam Cho: The Court has issued a stay in the Ohio and Michigan partisan gerrymandering cases, and we await their rulings in North Carolina and Maryland. I was an expert witness in … Continue reading
Today’s orders are no surprise. Indeed, the Court often fails to give preliminary relief in redistricting cases even when the plaintiffs eventually win on the merits. Indeed, if the Court did allow the remaps to take place while the Maryland … Continue reading
Release: Today, Washington State Governor Jay Inslee signed a bill into law ensuring that people in state prisons will be counted as residents of their home addresses when new legislative districts are drawn, making Washington the fifth state to end the practice … Continue reading
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: A panel of federal judges late Friday temporarily blocked a lower court’s order that Assembly Speaker Robin Vos sit for a deposition in Wisconsin’s gerrymandering case. In their brief order, the judges wrote that they were suspending the requirement that … Continue reading
Detroit News: A House appropriations bill would allow the state’s Republican-led Legislature to hold the purse strings for the Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission approved by voters in November.The spending bill also would chip away at Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel’s … Continue reading
Roll Call: The Supreme Court on Monday gave the challengers of congressional maps in Ohio and Michigan until May 20 to respond to requests from state officials to stop court-ordered redrawing of district lines. Lower courts found the maps were … Continue reading
New CAP report from Alex Tausanovitch: Introduction and summaryFrom 2012 to 2016, the people of Michigan cast more than 50 percent of their ballots for Democratic Party legislative candidates. They voted for Democrats 52 percent of the time for the … Continue reading
SCOTUSBlog: At the end of March, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in two cases challenging federal congressional districts in North Carolina and Maryland as the product of unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering. A key question in both cases was whether courts should review partisan-gerrymandering claims … Continue reading
Here at The Economist. … Continue reading
Mike Parsons: In the past two weeks, federal district courts have struck down partisan gerrymanders in both Michigan and Ohio. As a matter of legal doctrine, these decisions are important. As Nick Stephanopoulos states, they reveal an emerging consensus among lower courts on the standards … Continue reading
Mark Joseph Stern for Slate. … Continue reading
Gongwer: Michigan Republicans have asked the three-judge panel that ruled last week the Legislature must redraw maps for Michigan’s 14 U.S. House seats, the Michigan Senate and the Michigan House for an emergency stay of the ruling.The motion for an … Continue reading