Tag Archives: redistricting

Texas Mid-Decade Redistricting and DOJ Letter

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Harmeet Dhillon, the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, and Michael Gates, the Deputy Assistant Attorney General, have sent this letter to Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton, the Texas Attorney General, warning that four of the State’s congressional districts are unconstitutional.

Three of the four districts are represented by a person of color—two African Americans and one Latina: Al Green, Sylvia Garcia, and Marc Veasey. The fourth district is currently vacant after its representative, Sylvester Turner, died in office.

The DOJ’s letter declares that the districts “constitute unconstitutional ‘coalition districts’ and we urge the State of Texas to rectify these race-based considerations from these specific districts.” The letter cites cases, though its legal analysis is superficial. Its evident purpose is to provide a justification for Texas if it redraws those four districts. Governor Abbott’s decision to include congressional redistricting on the legislative agenda is ostensibly a response to the constitutional concerns raised by the DOJ.

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“Election do-over: Judge rules Cobb County electoral map unconstitutional”

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Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Cobb County’s electoral map is unconstitutional, the primary elections conducted in May for County Commission Districts 2 and 4 will have to be redone, and the November general election for those seats must be postponed, a judge ruled Thursday.

The sweeping and historic ruling is a direct consequence of the majority Democratic Cobb County Commission deciding in 2022 to redraw electoral lines to their own liking, after state legislators drew sitting Commissioner Jerica Richardson out of her district mid-term. The state constitution vests redistricting power with the state Legislature, but Cobb officials argued they could wrest that jurisdiction power away under the Home Rule provision.

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“Plaintiffs seek ruling Thursday in state Senate redistricting challenge”

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The Carolina Journal:

Plaintiffs challenging North Carolina’s new state Senate election map are asking a federal judge to make a decision Thursday about issuing a preliminary injunction.

Critics of the Senate plan filed their latest court document Tuesday evening. It argues for blocking two Senate districts in northeastern North Carolina. Plaintiffs contend that the districts run afoul of the federal Voting Rights Act because of racial gerrymandering.

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“Here are the redistricting disputes shaping the battle for House control”

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CBS News:

Election Day 2024 may still be 11 months away, but the first stage of the battle over control of the House is underway, with redistricting fights being waged in courtrooms from Louisiana to New York.

In a dozen states, congressional maps drawn after the 2020 Census have been challenged under federal voting rights law and the U.S. Constitution, leading to drawn-out legal battles in some states over the redistricting plans they began crafting in 2021. Disputes in Georgia, Louisiana and Alabama, in particular, have been closely watched, as Democrats could pick up a seat in each of the states.

“All are places where districts are at play, and it still remains unclear in a lot of these places whether there are changes that will result in Republican-drawn gerrymanders being undone,” said Kareem Crayton, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice.

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“Republicans likely to take Wisconsin gerrymandering case back to the U.S. Supreme Court”

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Republican lawmakers are likely heading back to the U.S. Supreme Court to defend Wisconsin’s electoral maps that have delivered huge GOP majorities for years. But they’ll first have to convince the nation’s high court it has a reason to intervene in the dispute.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday ordered the Republican-controlled state Legislature to draw new legislative boundaries ahead of the 2024 election, arguing the maps are unconstitutional because many disticts’ boundaries are not contiguous — meaning they include pieces of land that are not connected.

The court in a 4-3 decision said it is also prepared to replace the state’s heavily gerrymandered maps if the Legislature and Democratic governor cannot agree on a new plan.

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“Allegheny County Council approves redistricting commission”

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WESA (NPR Pittsburgh):

Allegheny County Council voted Tuesday in favor of a new process for drawing the boundaries of its own council districts.

New boundaries are drawn for legislative districts after each national census. Under county council’s current rules, that process has been controlled by the council president.

Under new rules proposed by outgoing Councilor Tom Duerr, however, council will establish a bipartisan commission to create and recommend three maps for council to consider. Commission representatives must be familiar with the use of data, the redistricting process, and community outreach. After the commission presents three maps, council members will be able to submit their own options.

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Republicans Advantage in House Fading

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The Morning analyzes how redistricting for Congress is shaping up after the rounds of litigation. Its conclusion: The Republican Party’s advantage is fading.

“If everything goes Democrats’ way, roughly 10 House seats could become meaningfully easier to win. Next year, the party needs to net only five seats to reclaim the House. New York alone could switch six seats from leaning Republican to leaning Democrat. . . .

Even if litigation results are more mixed, David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report says that the redistricting process will leave each party with a similar shot at securing the Speakership. That of course does not mean that most districts will be competitive.

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“‘We Have a Right to Put It on the Ballot’: How Organizers Are Defending Direct Democracy”

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Bolts Magazine. I see this story as relevant to a basic question that I think is going to confront the field of election law (and, more broadly, the law of democratic procedures) over the next decade or so: the extent to which decisions should be made on the basis of majority rule. Watching the fight over Issue 1 unfold in Ohio, I became convinced of the importance of preserving the right of the citizenry to control the machinery of their self-government by means of a majority vote. I recognize that there have been arguments in favor of a supermajority requirement for constitutional change, but on balance I think the risk of “minority rule” through a supermajority requirement is greater than the risk of an oppressive majority. Certainly, it would have been a serious problem for self-government in Ohio if Issue 1 had prevailed in raising the threshold for constitutional change to 60%. That would have made it extremely difficult to adopt new anti-gerrymandering reform, for example, to redress the way that incumbent politicians managed to negate the efficacy of the previous anti-gerrymandering reforms in the state during the last decade.

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“Alabama Republicans defend not creating a second majority Black district in court”

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Zach Montellaro in POLITICO.

“Hearings over the new map kicked off in federal court in Alabama on Monday, and the state is once again arguing that it is not illegally diluting the power of Black voters. This week’s hearing will be crucial to determining if the fight wraps up quickly — or stretches on for potentially years to come.

“It’s not an academic exercise. The court’s decision could have significant ramifications nationally; Democrats could pick up an additional seat in Congress where they are a handful of seats shy of a majority, and the fight could ultimately make its way back to the Supreme Court. A second majority-Black district in the state would likely lead to a second Democratic representative as well. …

“During Monday’s hearing, all three of the judges on the panel questioned if Alabama was ignoring the court. Federal District Court Judge Terry F. Moorer, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, pointedly asked if Alabama had chosen to “deliberately disregard” their instructions when drawing the new map, the Associated Press reported. …

“Republicans argue that the new map they redrew effectively resets the clock for litigation. The defendants acknowledge in a brief that the court “opined” that there should be two majority-Black voting districts, or close to that. But, they argue, that act of the legislature redrawing the map effectively starts the process of challenging the lines over — especially because the legislature prioritized keeping specific “communities of interest” together in 2023, which they say was a change from the 2021 map the court previously stuck down.

“Attorneys for the plaintiffs reject that assertion, arguing that by allowing the state to name new redistricting principles as they redraw would amount to giving ‘the state infinite bites at the apple. …

“The three-judge panel that ordered the state to redraw the maps in the first place seems unlikely to buy this argument from Republicans. In addition to the questioning in the court on Monday, in an earlier order, the judges wrote that the court is “not at square one” and would not “relitigate” the likely violation of the Voting Rights Act.”

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“Lawsuit targets Wisconsin legislative districts resembling Swiss cheese”

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AP reports. “Wisconsin’s nationally peculiar practice of detached districts is cited as one of several alleged violations in a recent lawsuit seeking to strike down current Assembly and Senate districts and replace them before the 2024 election. …

“Wisconsin’s detached districts are ‘profoundly weird,’ said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Marymount University Law School in Los Angeles who created the All About Redistricting website. …

“’When you allow mapmakers to draw districts that are noncontiguous, you give them even more flexibility to perpetrate abuse,’” Levitt said.”

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