Category Archives: redistricting

“Wisconsin redistricting case will be heard by panel that includes two judges nominated by Obama, one by Trump”

August 19, 2021, 8:11 amredistrictingRick Hasen

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: A challenge to Wisconsin’s congressional and legislative districts will be heard by an appeals judge nominated by President Donald Trump and two trial judges nominated by President Barack Obama.The panel will decide whether to set a timeline for… Continue reading

ELB Podcast, Episode 3.1: “Nate Persily: A Redistricting Season Like No Other”

August 18, 2021, 6:30 pmELB Podcast, redistrictingRick Hasen

I’m thrilled to announce the launch of Season 3 of the ELB Podcast. The first season was 2015-16 and the second on in 2017-18. You can find all the old episodes at this link. And you can subscribe on… Continue reading

What new census data tell us about Pa.’s politics: More influence for Philly and Latinos, and a shrinking white vote

August 16, 2021, 11:11 amprimaries, redistricting, votingTabatha Abu El-Haj

From Jonathan Tamari and Jonathan Lai at the Philadelphia Inquirer: An interesting in-depth analysis of the potential political consequences of demographic changes in Pennsylvania—sadly, behind a firewall. Two key points beyond the headline: “Philadelphia and suburban Bucks, Chester, Delaware,… Continue reading

“The Geography of Law: Understanding the Origin of State and Federal Redistricting Cases”

August 15, 2021, 10:15 amredistrictingDerek Muller

A timely piece in Political Research Quarterly: Knowing where legal complaints arise can tell us something about them and reveal clues about their conditions of origin. In this paper, we examine the geographic origins of litigation challenging the boundaries… Continue reading

“Two-Party Structural Countermandering”

August 15, 2021, 6:15 amredistrictingDerek Muller

Draft from Benjamin Plener Cover forthcoming in the Iowa Law Review now up on SSRN: The popular narrative surrounding gerrymandering frames it as a performative phenomenon—achieved through the intentional manipulations of malevolent partisan actors. Efforts to curb partisan gerrymandering—which… Continue reading

“Colorado redistricting panel votes to end ‘prison gerrymandering’ in new legislative maps”

August 13, 2021, 4:29 pmredistrictingDerek Muller

Colorado Newsline: For the first time in the state’s history, Colorado will change how it counts incarcerated people when drawing up new legislative maps, a redistricting panel confirmed in a vote on Friday.Historically, prison inmates have been counted by… Continue reading

“Democrats File First Wisconsin 2021 Redistricting Lawsuit”

August 13, 2021, 10:39 amredistrictingDerek Muller

Wisconsin Public Radio: Democrats filed the first Wisconsin lawsuit related to the 2021 redistricting process on Friday, arguing a federal court should step in to draw the state’s next set of political maps because state lawmakers and Gov. Tony… Continue reading

Bernie Grofman: “Can Partisan Fairness Be Melded with Good Government Criteria? John Nagle’s Intriguing Solution”

August 13, 2021, 7:52 amredistrictingRick Hasen

The following is a guest post from my UCI colleague Bernie Grofman: There are many issues of tradeoffs when considering criteria for redistricting. For example, Nick Stephanopoulos in an August 11, 2021 posting to this blog asserted: “Don’t Conflate… Continue reading

Colorado Redistricting & Competitiveness

August 10, 2021, 7:26 amredistrictingNed Foley

I’m circling back to a post that Rick Pildes did on the role of competitiveness in the drawing of new congressional maps for Colorado. Here’s one more point along the same lines, based on the numerical analysis that Election Law… Continue reading

“What Redistricting Looks Like in Every State”

August 10, 2021, 4:26 amredistrictingDerek Muller

FiveThirtyEight has launched a new site dedicated to examining congressional redistricting.

“Census experts puzzled by high rate of unanswered questions”

August 10, 2021, 4:22 amredistrictingDerek Muller

Associated Press: Census Bureau statisticians and outside experts are trying to unravel a mystery: Why were so many questions about households in the 2020 census left unanswered?Residents did not respond to a multitude of questions about sex, race, Hispanic… Continue reading

House elections are unnecessarily uncompetitive

August 9, 2021, 4:28 pmredistrictingNed Foley

This Washington Post column builds on a numerical comparison of 2020 House and Senate elections that the Election Law at Ohio State team has developed. In addition to the example of Georgia discussed in the column, it’s worth considering the… Continue reading

A plug for “All About Redistricting” as the census data will soon be released

August 6, 2021, 5:02 amredistrictingDerek Muller

Justin Levitt’s tireless work at “All About Redistricting” is being carried on by Doug Spencer while Justin is in the government. It is an extraordinary and valuable resource. From the “About this site”: All About Redistricting is a… Continue reading

“The voting fix that cannot wait: Stopping partisan gerrymandering”

August 4, 2021, 6:34 amredistrictingDerek Muller

Michael Li op-ed in the Washington Post. As he notes, “On Aug. 16, the Census Bureau releases map data to states. After that, states are expected to rush to complete maps. Eighteen states, including Texas, Ohio and North Carolina,… Continue reading

“Redistricting battles kick off early as Democrats scramble to try to cut into GOP advantages”

August 3, 2021, 7:03 pmredistrictingDerek Muller

Washington Post: The battle over the once-a-decade realignment of legislative and congressional districts is underway across the country even before new maps have been drawn, with lawsuits filed in nearly a dozen states, signaling how intense the fight for… Continue reading