North Carolina: Voters: ‘Time is of the essence’ in adopting redistricting recommendations | Greensboro News & Record

The North Carolina General Assembly is not entitled to another shot at fixing any remaining racial flaws in its most recent redistricting efforts, voting rights lawyers contend in newly filed court papers. Attorneys for 31 voters who successfully sued the legislature for racial gerrymandering are urging a three-judge, federal panel to resolve the lingering flaws on its own by adopting a “special master” consultant’s recent recommendations. “While courts generally are obligated to give the legislature the first chance to remedy violations in a redistricting plan, they are not required to give the legislature limitless chances to do so,” lawyers Allison Riggs and Edwin Speas assert in their joint petition.

Virginia: Briefs filed in Virginia Supreme Court in redistricting challenge | Augusta Free Press

Briefs were filed today in the Supreme Court of Virginia supporting the appeal in Vesilind v. Virginia State Board of Elections, a case backed by OneVirginia2021, a bipartisan organization seeking to end the practice of gerrymandering legislative districts in the Commonwealth. The case, which challenges the General Assembly’s 2011 drawing of 11 House and Senate legislative districts, states the current boundaries violate the Virginia constitution’s requirement that districts be composed of territory that is “compact.”  

Maryland: Governor to Push Redistricting Reform Bill Again | Associated Press

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Wednesday that he will try again for the fourth consecutive year to make congressional redistricting a nonpartisan process. Hogan, a Republican, said he will submit legislation in the next session to create an independent commission to draw congressional and state legislative districts. Now, the governor and lawmakers craft them. Hogan has made the reform proposal in each of his three years as governor, but it has not advanced. The governor said reforming the process for drawing the districts for members of Congress and the state legislature is widely supported, by citizens as well as interest groups that care about free and fair elections on both sides of the political aisle.

Ohio: GOP leaders say bipartisan deal close for congressional redistricting reform | Cleveland Plain Dealer

Republican Ohio House and Senate leaders said Wednesday that bipartisan approval could come by the end of January for a plan to reform the way congressional districts are drawn in Ohio. The proposal would then go to the ballot for voter approval and could be in place by the next time congressional district lines are drawn, following the 2020 census. Ohio House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger of Clarksville and Senate President Larry Obhof of Medina, however, did not provide details of what reform might involve. Advocates of a separate petition drive to change the Ohio Constitution in an effort to end political gerrymandering have said they would wait for details of any legislative plan before considering an end to their effort.

Pennsylvania: Debate over ‘wasted’ votes dominates third day of state redistricting trial | WHYY

The plaintiffs’ argument in the state lawsuit over Pennsylvania’s congressional district map hinges on whether they can prove the state legislature designed a map meant to dilute Democratic votes. Much of the trial’s third day was spent by plaintiffs trying to quantify the map’s alleged partisan advantages by looking at decades of data, spurring a debate about how many votes are “wasted” because of the way congressional boundary lines were drawn. Say you have five congressional districts each with 100 voters. Democrats win two by wide margins, and Republicans win three in tight races. That’s what redistricting experts would call a map with an “efficiency gap” designed to advantage Republicans by wasting votes for Democrats.

Pennsylvania: Expert sees partisanship in Pennsylvania congressional maps | Associated Press

A political scientist serving as an expert for voters challenging Pennsylvania’s congressional districts testified Monday that “extreme partisan intent” by Republicans appears to have been the predominant factor in producing a map that has disproportionately favored GOP candidates. University of Michigan professor Jowei Chen said during the first day of a Commonwealth Court hearing over the 2011 maps that none of the hundreds of computer simulations he has run has produced a map so favorable to Republicans. In recent elections, Republicans have had a durable 13-5 advantage among the congressional delegation, and the lawsuit claims the maps are so partisan they violate the state constitution. “Whichever way you slice and dice the data, the enacted plan is a 13-5 Republican plan,” Chen said.

Editorials: Is the Supreme Court finally ready to tackle partisan gerrymandering? Signs suggest yes | Richard Hasen/Los Angeles Times

Is the Supreme Court about to cause great political upheaval by getting into the business of policing the worst partisan gerrymanders? Signs from last week suggest that it well might. At the very beginning of its term back in October, the court heard oral arguments in Gill vs. Whitford, a case challenging Wisconsin’s plan for drawing districts for its state Assembly. Republican legislators drew the lines to give them a great advantage in these elections. Even when Democrats won more than majority of votes cast in the Assembly elections, Republicans controlled about 60% of the seats. The court has for many years refused to police such gerrymandering. Conservative justices suggested that the question was “nonjusticiable” (meaning the cases could not be heard by the courts) because there were no permissible standards for determining when partisanship in drawing district lines went too far. Liberals came forward with a variety of tests. And Justice Anthony M. Kennedy stood in the middle, as he often does. He argued that all the tests liberals proposed didn’t work, while trying to keep the courthouse door open for new tests.

Maryland: Supreme Court will take up a second gerrymandering case this term | The Washington Post

The Supreme Court announced Friday it will add a second case this term to determine whether partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional, accepting a challenge from Maryland Republicans who say the state’s dominant Democrats drew a congressional district that violated their rights. The court already has heard a challenge from Wisconsin Democrats, who challenged a legislative redistricting drawn by the state’s Republican leaders. The cases could reshape the way American elections are conducted. The Supreme Court has never thrown out a state’s redistricting efforts due to partisan gerrymandering, and political parties consider drawing the map one of the perks of being in charge of state government.

Pennsylvania: Lawsuit challenging congressional map begins state court | WHYY

Testimony in a fast-tracked lawsuit alleging gerrymandering got underway in Pa. Commonwealth Court Monday. The case could force a new state congressional map before the 2018 midterm election. Eighteen registered Democrats — one from each congressional district — claim Pennsylvania’s map was drawn unfairly by state GOP leaders to advantage Republicans. Congressional maps have to follow certain rules, such as distributing equal numbers of voters between districts. Advocates for fairer congressional maps say it’s also a best practice to avoid dividing counties and municipalities when drawing district boundary lines.

Pennsylvania: Second gerrymandering challenge heads to trial today | WITF

By some measures, Pennsylvania’s Congressional districts are among the most gerrymandered in the nation.
But the resulting district maps are being challenged, and one case is slated to begin today in Commonwealth Court. The League of Women Voters is bringing the lawsuit on behalf of registered voters from all over the state.
They’re accusing Republicans of intentionally designing districts so that Democrats’ votes are diluted, which they argue is a violation of the state constitution’s equal protection clause. They are calling for a new map.

Pennsylvania: Compelling closing arguments bring federal trial over gerrymandering to an end | WHYY

The federal trial over Pennsylvania’s congressional district map wrapped up in a Philadelphia courtroom on Thursday with a string of stirring closing arguments before a three-judge panel. During four days of deliberations, a group of more than 20 Pennsylvania voters challenged the way Republican lawmakers drew the state’s congressional districts in 2011, asserting a gerrymandering scheme that violates the U.S. Constitution. If the voters are successful, they could trigger a new congressional map impacting the 2018 midterm elections when all 18 of Pennsylvania’s seats in the U.S. House of Representative could be contested.

Editorials: In Pennsylvania gerrymander case, experts can’t defend the indefensible | Nicholas Stephanopoulos/Philadelphia Inquirer

Pennsylvania is no stranger to partisan gerrymandering disputes. In a blockbuster 2004 case, the Supreme Court declined to strike down the congressional map then in effect. The court didn’t quite hold that the map was lawful; rather, it couldn’t think of a workable standard for evaluating the map’s validity. Another gerrymandering suit is now making its way through the Pennsylvania courts, with a decision expected by the end of the year. But unlike its predecessor, this suit is based on a manageable test as well as a mountain of damning evidence. Perhaps for this reason, it has thoroughly flummoxed the state’s lawyers and experts.

Pennsylvania: Voters testify in gerrymandering trial in federal court | WHYY

On the second day of trial in a federal case over partisan gerrymandering and the constitutionality of Pennsylvania’s congressional district map, seven voters named as plaintiffs in the case testified that they believe their vote doesn’t count. They’re calling for a new map in time for the 2018 midterm election, when all 18 of Pennsylvania’s congressional seats are up for grabs. Louis Agre, 63, a leader in Philadelphia’s Democratic party, complained that elections aren’t competitive enough in the 2nd congressional district.

Pennsylvania: Lawyer: ‘Voter-proof’ state congressional map favors the GOP | Associated Press

A lawyer for a group of Democratic voters in Pennsylvania told a federal court Monday that it should throw out the state’s congressional district map favoring Republican candidates because it was created to be “voter-proof.” Thomas Geoghehan noted that Pennsylvania is a swing state that supported both Barack Obama and Donald Trump for president. Control of power in the state has been topsy-turvy, alternating the party of governors, for instance, and electing U.S. senators from opposing parties. Under the previous map, congressional representation changed from election to election. But since 2012, Republicans have won 13 of the state’s 18 districts in each election — even in 2012, when more votes were cast for Democrats than Republicans in House races statewide.

Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania case takes new approach to redistricting rules | Associated Press

Judges have been asked repeatedly to decide whether the lawmakers in charge of drawing congressional district lines have gone too far to favour their parties. A group of Democratic voters from Pennsylvania is approaching the issue in a different way, asserting it’s wrong for the congressional map to be made to boost one party — at all. The case is scheduled to be tried starting this week before a three-judge federal panel. The potential fallout is immense in a state where Republicans have consistently controlled 13 of 18 congressional seats even though statewide votes for congressional candidates are usually divided nearly evenly between Republicans and Democrats. A victory for the plaintiffs could mean a quick redrawing of districts before the 2018 midterm elections and could establish new rules for how congressional districts are remade after the 2020 census.

North Carolina: Redistricting expert: No ‘racial targeting’ in map fixes | Associated Press

The expert who federal judges asked to redraw some North Carolina House and Senate district lines defended his final recommendations Friday, rejecting Republican arguments that he created boundaries with racial population quotas and helped Democrats. Stanford University law professor Nathaniel Persily released his proposal, which altered two dozen of the General Assembly’s 170 districts, mostly in the counties in or around Raleigh, Greensboro, Charlotte and Fayetteville. Some adjusted districts returned to the shapes that the legislature first drew in 2011. The judges will meet Jan. 5 in Greensboro before deciding whether to adopt the changes, about five weeks before candidate filing begins for next November’s elections. GOP lawmakers already have said it was premature for the judges to hire Persily as a special master, and House Speaker Tim Moore already has signaled map changes could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Pennsylvania: State case takes new approach to redistricting rules | Associated Press

Judges have been asked repeatedly to decide whether the lawmakers in charge of drawing congressional district lines have gone too far to favor their parties. A group of Democratic voters from Pennsylvania is approaching the issue in a different way, asserting it’s wrong for the congressional map to be made to boost one party – at all. The case is scheduled to be tried starting this week before a three-judge federal panel. The potential fallout is immense in a state where Republicans have consistently controlled 13 of 18 congressional seats even though statewide votes for congressional candidates are usually divided nearly evenly between Republicans and Democrats. A victory for the plaintiffs could mean a quick redrawing of districts before the 2018 midterm elections and could establish new rules for how congressional districts are remade after the 2020 census.

National: Gerrymandering opponents turn to ballot initiatives to redraw lines | The Hill

Advocates of radically overhauling partisan gerrymandering are increasingly looking to ballot initiatives to reform the redistricting process, in hopes of circumventing recalcitrant legislatures. Supporters of a proposal to create a nonpartisan redistricting commission in Michigan say they will turn in more than 400,000 signatures by the end of the year. They need 315,000 of those signatures to be valid in order to qualify for next year’s ballot. In Ohio, a coalition of organizations is in the process of collecting the 305,591 valid signatures they need to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot. And in Colorado, another coalition plans two ballot initiatives — one that would reform congressional redistricting, and another to reform legislative redistricting.

Editorials: Louisiana needs to find a better way to draw electoral districts | The Advocate

A grassroots group, Fair Districts Louisiana, is helping to host a conference at LSU in January on the problem of politically gerrymandered district lines for Congress, the Legislature and other bodies. We need ideas for a better process. In Louisiana, as in most other states, the Legislature determines the electoral districts for congressional, state House and state Senate seats. The maps have prompted lawsuits in several states, amid growing criticism that political parties are using legislative control to give themselves unfair advantages.

Editorials: With court cases looming, the fight over voting rights will only intensify | Carl P. Leubsdorf/Dallas Morning News

In the coming weeks, high federal courts will hear important cases challenging two ways Republicans have sought since Barack Obama’s election as president to restrict voting of Democratic-leaning groups. They come at a time when efforts initially focused on restrictive voter-identification laws in Texas and other GOP-controlled states have broadened to include purging voter rolls of people who hadn’t lately voted and limiting early voting in areas with large minority populations. In early December, a federal appeals court will hear the latest version of the long-pending Texas voter ID law. In January, the Supreme Court, which is already considering a Wisconsin case challenging political redistricting, will hear an Ohio case that could produce a crucial legal judgment on the ability of state officials to purge voter rolls.

South Carolina: Voters’ group getting head start on redistricting | SCNow

Voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around, according to a voter education group. This seems to be the rally cry of the League of Women’s Voters of South Carolina, whose local members held an information meeting last Thursday at the Hartsville Memorial Library. The meeting went over the age-old problem of gerrymandering, where elected officials attempt to keep voting districts favorable to one side of party affiliation or the other. “Representative of both major political parties seek partisan advantage from gerrymandering,” said information from the meeting. “This is not a problem associated with one or another political party. Incumbent protection has also shaped South Carolina’s districts.”

National: Crooked lines: How technology, data have changed political boundaries | WTSP

With gerrymandering being one of the highest-profile cases to go before the U.S. Supreme Court this session , the issue has taken center stage as lawmakers prepare for another round of redistricting based off the 2020 census. Lawmakers across the country re-draw political district boundaries every decade, but gerrymandering happens when those lines are drawn to give themselves an unfair advantage. Redistricting is a normal and important element of U.S. government, but the line between redistricting and gerrymandering can be fuzzy. With technology drastically improving mapping software and the data behind it, there are more tools to effectively gerrymander districts than ever before. “Redistricting has always been a controversial issue because it’s political,” said Dr. Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida. “You really have to go back, some of the odd-shaped districts are the result of, actually, an order of the U.S. Supreme Court years ago.”

North Carolina: ‘Race-based redistricting’ imposed on NC ‘against its will,’ lawmakers say | News & Observer

Lawmakers and the challengers of maps proposed for electing North Carolina’s General Assembly members waited until the 11th hour to respond to districts suggested by an unaffiliated mapmaker. Lawmakers were critical of the process, saying the federal judges who tapped a Stanford University law professor to draw maps for them had done so prematurely and allowed him to consider race as he looked at election districts in Cumberland, Guilford, Hoke, Mecklenburg, Wake, Bladen, Sampson and Wayne counties. The three federal judges presiding over the case that will determine what districts North Carolina’s state Senate and House members come from in the 2018 elections have yet to rule on maps the lawmakers adopted in August. The judges — James Wynn of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Catherine Eagles and Thomas Schroeder, both of the U.S. Middle District of North Carolina — ordered new lines after the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed their ruling last year that found 28 of the state legislative districts were longstanding unconstitutional racial gerrymanders.

North Carolina: Expert proposes legislative maps in redistricting case | WRAL

A map-making expert brought in by federal judges to rework North Carolina’s House and Senate districts released his proposal Monday. Attorneys on both sides of the underlying lawsuit requiring new maps have until Friday to recommend changes for a plan that’s due Dec. 1 to the federal judges overseeing the redraw. That panel of three judges could accept that map, drawn by Stanford University law professor Nathaniel Persily, or stick with something closer to what the General Assembly’s Republican majority submitted earlier this year. The attorneys who initially sued to change the state’s maps argue that the GOP’s redraw didn’t fully address the racial gerrymander found by the judges and affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Pennsylvania: Redistricting reform plan stalled in committee | The Morning Call

In spite of a growing bipartisan citizens’ movement across Pennsylvania for redistricting reform to end gerrymandering, House Bill 722 is stalled in committee. As the majority chairman of the House State Government Committee, Rep. Metcalfe is the only person who can move this bill forward. We are urging him to schedule HB 722 for action. A call to his office to find out why he has not moved on a bill that will restore integrity to our election process so that every person’s vote counts has gone unanswered.

Utah: Judge is poised to ‘adjust gerrymandering with gerrymandering,’ giving Navajos an edge in southern Utah county | The Salt Lake Tribune

History may be in the making in San Juan County this week when a judge holds hearings that could place the Navajo community in the political driver’s seat — a stark departure from the past century dominated by Anglos. On Thursday, federal Judge Robert Shelby will hold public hearings in Monticello at 10:30 a.m. and Bluff at 3:30 p.m. regarding several map proposals — all of which most likely would lead to Navajos holding majorities on the two most powerful government bodies in the county.

National: Eric Holder’s Battle Against Gerrymandering | The New Yorker

On November 7th, in Washington, D.C., after delivering a speech to the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, Eric Holder grabbed his Blackberry in search of results from the Virginia elections. As the former Attorney General scrolled backward through a long e-mail thread, he quickly learned just how stunning a night it had been for the Democrats. He also understood that, after this triumph, it might be a little harder to keep his party focussed on gerrymandering. “The system didn’t become more fair as a result of what happened last night,” Holder told me the next day. “The system appears to be more fair in spite of the reality that those Democratic candidates faced. The job that I have is to make sure people don’t become complacent.”

North Carolina: Court-appointed specialist draws new maps for gerrymandered House, Senate districts | Greensboro News & Record

An outside expert appointed by a federal court to help redraw some North Carolina legislative districts that judges worry remained unconstitutional — including at least two in Guilford County — has suggested changes. On Monday, Stanford University law professor Nathaniel Persily filed his preliminary House and Senate plans. He also requested formal responses from Republican legislative leaders who originally drew the boundaries and from voters who successfully sued over them. Judges want Persily’s final proposal by Dec. 1. Judges have said four districts redrawn last summer by GOP legislators still appeared to preserve illegal racial bias, so Persily said he redrew compact replacements for them. He also retooled several districts in and around Charlotte and Raleigh because of potential state constitutional problems.

Pennsylvania: Why Pennsylvania is home to some of the nation’s worst gerrymanders | WHYY

In most states, the legislature is in charge of designing Congressional and state voting districts.
Pennsylvania isn’t unique in that respect. But some say the commonwealth is home to some of the nation’s starkest examples of gerrymandering — where the shape of a voting district is manipulated to produce the outcome desired by the party in charge. The term is over 200 years old. It was coined by a Boston newspaper’s coverage of maps produced in Massachusetts in 1812 during the term of Gov. Elbridge Gerry, which featured a salamander-shaped district loosely coiled around Boston.

Virginia: What Virginia tells us, and doesn’t tell us, about gerrymandering | Los Angeles Times

Although the Virginia governorship was Tuesday’s marquee race, the Virginia House of Delegates produced the day’s most surprising result. Democrats picked up at least 15 seats and reduced a 66 to 34 Republican advantage to, at most, 51 to 49. A gerrymandered chamber thought to be safely Republican suddenly became a toss-up — and may yet flip to Democratic control after all the recounts are completed. This unexpected outcome raises the question: Can gerrymandering really be such a problem if a party’s legislative edge can virtually disappear overnight? This question is especially important at present, as the Supreme Court mulls over Gill vs. Whitford, a potentially historic case about redistricting in Wisconsin. The question also has a clear answer: Of course gerrymandering is deeply troublesome even if it can be overcome, at least temporarily, by a wave election.The question also has a clear answer: Of course gerrymandering is deeply troublesome even if it can be overcome, at least temporarily, by a wave election.