Miami Herald: The Florida Supreme Court on Friday ordered the trial court to return to the redistricting drawing board, allowing it to review the rival maps submitted by the House and Senate and choose between them. The court rejected a … Continue reading
Category Archives: redistricting
Stateline reports. … Continue reading
ABC: Back in June a federal court ruled that Virginia’s third congressional district had been illegally packed with black voters to make surrounding districts safer for Republican incumbents, ordering the lines be redrawn by September 1. “The Virginia General Assembly … Continue reading
The Hill: But Pelosi’s co-sponsorship of this year’s reform proposal marks a rare move for a party leader who seldom lends an official signature to individual bills. Her formal endorsement is both an escalation of support for non-partisan redistricting and … Continue reading
The Tampa Bay Times reports. … Continue reading
Maryland Reporter: Gov. Larry Hogan’s 11-member Redistricting Reform Commission, created on Aug. 6 by executive order, met for first time near the State House Thursday where they outlined their first steps to reform the process of drawing Maryland’s congressional and … Continue reading
Derek Muller has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, FSU Law Review). Here is the abstract: Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission might be viewed as a dispute about the control over redistricting, with a heavy emphasis on the … Continue reading
The Tampa Bay Times reports. … Continue reading
Miami Herald: A special legislative session to fix Florida’s flawed congressional district lines ended in chaos Friday as senators staged a walkout and the House rejected Senate requests to extend the session into a third week. Lawmakers ended the session … Continue reading
Legal Talk Network: Legal Talk Network producer Laurence Colletti interviews Benjamin Griffith, Robert Heath, Nancy Abudu, Tanya Clay House, and Nicole Austin-Hillery about election law at the 2015 American Bar Association Annual Meeting. The guests explain the history of election … Continue reading
Tampa Bay Times: A divide over how to shape Tampa Bay’s congressional districts is creating uncertainty over whether the Legislature will be able to finish its job in a court-ordered special session on time. While a legislative impasse is hardly … Continue reading
Tampa Bay Times: The shadow redistricting process that brought down the congressional map also was in full swing in the state Senate’s efforts to redraw its own districts in 2011 and 2012, depositions and email documents submitted as part of … Continue reading
Roll Call reports. … Continue reading
Miami Herald: Florida’s prison population is fast becoming a point of contention in the Legislature’s attempt to redraw the state’s congressional districts. The last Census counted more than 160,000 people in Florida correctional facilities, and they cannot vote. But they … Continue reading
The latest from FL. … Continue reading
Richmond Post-Dispatch on what we’ve suspected what happen: a federal court will draw the lines because the Republican legislature won’t do it with a Democratic governor. … Continue reading
The latest from Va. I expect a three-judge court will likely draw the lines. … Continue reading
Politico: Brown insisted that was the case, without providing specific statistics, and the following is a transcript of her responses to repeated questions from POLITICO Florida and the News Service of Florida about her claims. QUESTION: “The statistics don’t show … Continue reading
Miami Herald: After days of listening to how their staff redrew Florida’s 27 congressional districts in relative seclusion, state legislators Wednesday started taking their own turn at re-mapping the state. By the end of the third day of the 12-day … Continue reading
The Miami Herald reports. … Continue reading
AP reports. … Continue reading
“Murphy’s Law” column. … Continue reading
The latest on FL redistricting. … Continue reading
WaPo: Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) is breaking with other Democrats again over redistricting, saying she’s open to an independent commission proposed by Gov. Larry Hogan (R). “I have long supported redistricting reforms to end the damage partisan gerrymandering does to … Continue reading
Orlando Sentinel: Implying that a secret, racist agenda may be in play to eliminate Congressional districts drawn to represent black voters, U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville, filed a federal lawsuit Thursday to stop Florida’s redistricting effort. On Wednesday the Florida … Continue reading
Miami Herald: “U.S. Representatives Ted Deutch and Lois Frankel issued a joint statement today in response to the proposed map by the state Legislature which shows that their homes will both be in District 21.” … Continue reading
AP: “A panel of judges has rejected Republican requests to delay an upcoming special legislative session called to draw new congressional boundaries in Virginia. The panel ruled 2-1 Wednesday that it was not going to extend a Sept. 1 deadline to … Continue reading
New book on Florida redistricting by Seth McKee. Click on the link to get the book this month at half price. … Continue reading
Nick Stephanopoulos’s contribution to NYT’s Room for Debate forum on the future of the Voting Rights Act is now up. … Continue reading
Politico on a strange claim: Two Florida Republican Party officials have filed a federal lawsuit to block the state’s anti-gerrymandering constitutional clauses, arguing the provisions limit First Amendment speech and amount to “thought policing.” The lawsuit, filed Tuesday night in … Continue reading
I have posted this draft on SSRN. It is still an early draft. Comments welcome! Here is the abstract: The first decade of election law cases at the Supreme Court under the leadership of Chief Justice Roberts brought election law … Continue reading
Still pending, and we are getting close to the 2016 election season…. Perhaps the case will be resolved before the 2020 round of redistricting. … Continue reading
Nate Persily’s contribution to SCOTUSBlog’s Evenwel v. Abbott symposium: These points concerning the inaccuracy and variability of the potential alternative data sources for redistricting will likely receive less attention in Evenwel than familiar constitutional arguments concerning the proper interpretation of … Continue reading
J. Douglas Smith, author of On Democracy’s Doorstep: The Inside Story of How the Supreme Court Brought ‘One Person, One Vote’ to the United States, has written this piece on Evenwel in the Altantic. He concludes: Until the Supreme Court sits for oral … Continue reading
Herald Tribune: Since 2008, Florida has exhibited the political equivalent of a split personality, with a Democratic president twice winning the state even as Republicans racked up large majorities in the Legislature and congressional delegation. Among the explanations for the … Continue reading
Here. … Continue reading
I have written this contribution to SCOTUSBlog’s symposium on Evenwel v. Abbott. It begins: It is tempting to think of the plaintiffs in Evenwel v. Abbott as conservatives. After all, the brainchildbehind this new “one person, one vote” lawsuit, Ed … Continue reading
The Justice spoke at Duke. She said this about Citizens United (via Adam Liptak): The court’s worst blunder, she said, was its 2010 decision in Citizens United “because of what has happened to elections in the United States and the … Continue reading
WaPo: Republican leaders of Virginia General Assembly on Tuesday rebuffed an effort by Gov. Terry McAuliffe to strike a deal on the state’s congressional elections map before a court-imposed deadline. … Continue reading
Here, at the SCOTUSBlog symposium. My submission to the symposium should post Friday. … Continue reading
Release: The Florida Senate agreed with Common Cause and the League of Women Voters of Florida today that the Senate violated state constitutional anti-gerrymandering standards when it drew its 2012 district maps. … Continue reading
Miami Herald: The Florida Legislature has set yet another special session, this time for October to redraw the Florida Senate district lines that opponents had argued violated the state constitution prohibition on gerrymandering to favor or disfavor politicians. The Legislature … Continue reading
Roll Call reports. … Continue reading
Lyle Denniston for SCOTUSBlog. “Editor’s note: This post examines two cases the Supreme Court will review at its next Term: Evenwel v. Abbott, and Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. This post will be followed this week by a symposium on Evenwel.” … Continue reading
Details to come. From the earlier story: The lawsuit calls the move by state lawmakers arbitrary, discriminatory and “tainted with bad faith.” Plaintiffs say the legislation strips the city council and its residents of a voice in how they run the … Continue reading
Alan Greenblatt reports for Governing. … Continue reading
Transcript (video): KRISTOL: And I read somewhere that [your father] sort of personally had to do the redistricting of the legislative district after the Supreme Court insisted on one man, one vote. ALITO: I remember lying in bed listening to … Continue reading
Politico: On Nov. 29, the same day Krames sent out the updated list, he also sent an email to Wiggins, a state G.O.P. staffer, to keep him updated on the covert public relations campaign to push the maps they supported. … Continue reading
Alan Morrison on Evenwel. … Continue reading
The latest from Fla. … Continue reading