Jeff Wice and Piper Benedict go
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on the dysfunction in this round of redistricting in New York.
There’s little question about the need for adjustment/clarification of the process. And also, reform of the legislative redistricting process in a state without a citizens’ initiative has to go through legislative gatekeepers. Advocates will have to watch carefully to make sure that one step forward doesn’t come attached to two steps back.
New Common Cause report.
As the clock struck midnight on Feb. 10, 14 people scattered around California collectively exhaled in relief.
The 14 are members of the state’s independent citizens redistricting commission who drew 120 new districts for the Legislature, 52 for Congress and four for the state Board of Equalization that voters will use in this year’s election. The commissioners struggled at times to reach consensus, and their mapping was critiqued nearly every step of the way by some experts, advocates, elected officials and the public.
But after all the criticism, the commission approved the maps unanimously in late December, and Feb. 10 — the 45-day deadline for anyone to go to court to block the maps — came and went.
No one sued.
There’s still one more state hurdle to clear: critics have until March 27 to challenge the maps via a referendum — asking voters to reject them — before the new districts officially become effective. But there’s no sign any such costly effort is underway. (The maps could also be challenged in federal court as violating the U.S. constitution or the Voting Rights Act.)
“The absence of a state lawsuit challenging these maps is a testament to the effectiveness of California’s open, publicly accessible redistricting process and the design of its independent redistricting commission,” current commission Chairperson Russell Yee said in a statement.
Detroit Free Press:
A Thursday meeting of Michigan’s redistricting commission saw accusations of bullying, yelling, a failed censure vote against the group’s chair and a public apology for the tense exchanges that came as the group stares down multiple lawsuits and faces the sudden resignation of its top lawyer.
Only weeks ago, commissioners cheered and hugged one another after adopting new congressional and state legislative districts with few hiccups. The achievement prompted anti-gerrymandering advocates across the country to herald the commission’s work and tout the state’s commission as a model for how a randomly selected group of voters can draw fair voting districts.
But the group’s Thursday meeting saw some of the harshest bickering among commissioners yet and revealed new vulnerabilities in the group’s dynamics as it faces pending litigation that threatens to force commissioners to return to the drawing board.
NYT:
One of the country’s most gerrymandered political maps has suddenly been replaced by one of the fairest.
A decade after Michigan Republicans gave themselves seemingly impregnable majorities in the state Legislature by drawing districts that heavily favored their party, a newly created independent commission approved maps late Tuesday that create districts so competitive that Democrats have a fighting chance of recapturing the State Senate for the first time since 1984.
The work of the new commission, which includes Democrats, Republicans and independents and was established through a citizen ballot initiative, stands in sharp contrast to the type of hyperpartisan extreme gerrymandering that has swept much of the country, exacerbating political polarization — and it may highlight a potential path to undoing such gerrymandering.
With lawmakers excluded from the mapmaking process, Michigan’s new districts will much more closely reflect the overall partisan makeup of the hotly contested battleground state.
This is true to my experience here in Pennsylvania as a member of the Governor’s Advisory Council for the congressional redistricting process.
The 2020 California Citizens Redistricting Commission is seeking to retain Voting Rights Act Counsel and also Litigation Counsel. The two Requests for Information are at https://wedrawthelines.ca.gov/job_opportunities/. Interested individuals or firms with relevant experience are encouraged to apply to one or both. The application deadline is January 29, 2021. For more information, contact Kary Marshall, Chief Counsel, kary.marshall AT crc.ca.gov.
The Arizona Daily Star goes quite deep on the past, present, and future of Arizona’s Independent Redistricting Commission.
Michigan’s new independent commission law requires the Secretary of State to send hundreds of thousands of applications to randomly selected citizens … and the applications are now in the mail.
Today, the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, a research center at Harvard Kennedy School released “The Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission: One State’s Model for Gerrymandering Reform,” a new report detailing the lessons learned from Arizona’s innovative approach to legislative redistricting.
The report’s authors, Colleen Mathis, the current chair of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC); Daniel Moskowitz, Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy; and Benjamin Schneer, Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and Ash Center faculty affiliate, argue that independent redistricting commissions such as Arizona’s have been successful at fostering increased competition in individual legislative districts and promoting partisan fairness in the state as a whole.
Michael Wines for the NYT, on the ground in Wisconsin.
The SF Chronicle reports.
The SF Chronicle reports.
The SF Chronicle reports.