Ohio: New congressional redistricting method could be on ballot by next year | WCMH

Who should control the drawing of congressional district maps is at stake as Republican leadership at the statehouse come together to create a panel of four lawmakers who could develop a new method by the end of the year. For months, an effort supported by the League of Women Voters has been underway to gather signatures so a ballot issue could be placed before the people of Ohio. The measure would be similar to one introduced a few years ago. In 2015, voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot issue that restructured how the General Assembly districts will be drawn starting in 2021. To get to that point, four lawmakers sat down and hashed out a plan over a three-hour meeting; though to hear State Senator Matt Huffman tell the story, it was mostly himself and Vernon Sykes working out the details with some help from the other two men in the room, Keith Faber and Joe Schiavoni; this after hearing testimony from the public, of course.

Editorials: Will the Supreme Court strike down extreme partisan gerrymandering? | Thomas P. Wolf and Michael C. Li/Los Angeles Times

The U.S. Supreme Court this fall will hear a series of blockbuster cases dealing with core constitutional rights and basic national values. Among the most important is Gill vs. Whitford, a Wisconsin case that asks the justices to address the toxic threat of partisan gerrymandering. With Whitford, Americans — who by wide margins say they are fed up with gerrymandering — may finally get the breakthrough they have long sought. The court has already tried and failed several times to limit politicians’ power to manipulate electoral maps for partisan ends. Its failures have paved the way for so-called extreme partisan gerrymanders, electoral maps drawn by politicians and paid consultants that lock in a statewide majority for their party, through good and bad election cycles. But there is reason to believe that the Wisconsin case, which the court will take up Oct. 3, may turn out differently. Several crucial factors have aligned to make judicial action both relatively easy and absolutely necessary.

Editorials: The case against partisan gerrymandering | Nicholas Stephanopoulos/Slate

Superficially, the question in Gill v. Whitford—the blockbuster case about partisan gerrymandering in Wisconsin, to be heard next month by the Supreme Court—is a legal one. Is the test for gerrymandering adoptedby the trial court “discernible,” or rooted in the high court’s precedent, and “manageable,” or consistent in the results it would produce? Lurking beneath this question, though, is a more fundamental debate about the nature of voting and representation in modern American politics. The position the Supreme Court takes in this debate will likely influence its decision more than any legal argument. In its amicus brief, the Wisconsin legislature tells a rosy tale of voter and legislator behavior. Wisconsin voters do not “blindly support one party or the other,” the brief contends. Rather, they often split their tickets, or change their allegiances from one election to the next, based on “issues that matter to the electorate” and “the quality of the candidates and their campaigns.” Legislators, similarly, are highly responsive to their constituents’ preferences. Competitive races “force the winning candidate to adopt more moderate, centrist positions,” while “a landslide may allow that candidate to move further from the center.”

Ohio: Lawmakers look for new way to draw congressional lines | Dayton Daily News

State lawmakers plan to take another run at changing how Ohio’s congressional districts are carved out — a politically charged issue that has eluded reform for years. Ohio Senate President Larry Obhof, R-Medina, said this week that legislative leaders will announce details on a congressional redistricting study group this week. “Regardless of which side of the aisle you fall on, it’s worth airing out that discussion and seeing if we think there is a better process than what we have now,” Obhof said. “I’ve expressed some concerns in the past and I maintain those that any time you’re chipping away at something that has traditionally been a responsibility of the Legislature you should be cautious about that but I think there is plenty of room for us to have discussions and have meaningful opportunity for reform in the coming months.”

Wisconsin: Supreme Court case offers window into how representatives choose their constituents | The Washington Post

Behind the locked doors of a “map room,” in a politically connected law firm’s offices across from the historic Capitol, three men worked in secret to ensure the future of the state’s newly triumphant Republican Party. They were drawing the legislative districts in which members of the Wisconsin Senate and State Assembly would be elected. When the men — two aides to legislative leaders and a lobbyist brought in to help — finished in the early summer of 2011, they headed across the street to present their work. “The maps we pass will determine who’s here 10 years from now,” read the notes for the meeting, which were made public as part of a lawsuit. “We have an opportunity and an obligation to draw these maps that Republicans haven’t had in decades.” The maps are now at the center of a Supreme Court case to be argued next month that could change the dynamics of American politics — if the justices decide for the first time that a legislative map is so infected with political favoritism that it violates the Constitution.

North Carolina: Slow the redistricting process, engage stakeholders, witnesses say | Bladen Journal

If the separation-of-powers undertones in the judicial redistricting process weren’t already obvious, state Rep. Justin Burr, R-Stanly, left no doubt Tuesday. The General Assembly is exercising its authority to redraw district and Superior Court maps “not for the benefit of lawyers, but for the benefit of the people of this state,” Burr said after presiding over a meeting of the House Select Committee on Redistricting he chairs. Several lawyers and judges agreed during the 2 ½ hour meeting it’s a good idea to update and reconfigure the judicial districts. The most recent time that was done Dwight Eisenhower was president, “The $64,000 Question” was the top-rated TV show, and Mitch Miller and The Drifters were among the biggest pop music acts.

Ohio: What Ohio can learn from Arizona to eliminate gerrymandering | Cleveland Plain Dealer

Thanks to Arizona, there is an alternative to allowing elected politicians – focused on their self-interests or those of their party – to draw the congressional district boundaries every 10 years. Arizona voters in 2000 approved a different way. They changed the state constitution to establish an independent commission to do the work. Challenged in the Supreme Court in 2015, the use of an independent commission is now established as a legal alternative. State legislatures do not have to be involved. Perhaps Ohio could learn something from Arizona – ideas that could help Ohio devise a system to draw maps by focusing on the interest of the citizens instead of politicians and their parties.

National: Can Geometry Fix Partisan Gerrymandering? | Bowdoin News

A mathematician and a political scientist joined forces this week to give a two-part talk at Bowdoin about gerrymandering, which is the practice of redrawing congressional districts to help ensure partisan outcomes. Though gerrymandering lands squarely in the political realm, math has always played a big role in congressional districting. Math determines how the U.S. counts voters in its Census and how those voters get divided up to apportion representatives to the government. And today, math could possibly lead the way to a more fair and just political system that is based on mathematically derived voting districts, according to an academic who visited Bowdoin this week. Moon Duchin, an associate professor of mathematics at Tufts University, gave a talk Monday evening about how she is applying her expertise in the geometry of groups and surfaces to gerrymandering. “We’re looking at aspects of this big mess that is US congressional and legislative redistricting, and trying to find places where math has something to say,” she said.

Wisconsin: Fight over electoral district boundaries heads to Supreme Court | Reuters

It is a political practice nearly as old as the United States – manipulating the boundaries of legislative districts to help one party tighten its grip on power in a move called partisan gerrymandering – and one the Supreme Court has never curbed. That could soon change, with the nine justices making the legal fight over Republican-drawn electoral maps in Wisconsin one of the first cases they hear during their 2017-2018 term that begins next month. Their ruling in the case could influence American politics for decades. Wisconsin officials point to the difficulty of having courts craft a workable standard for when partisan gerrymandering violates constitutional protections. Opponents of the practice said limits are urgently needed, noting that sophisticated technological tools now enable a dominant party to devise with new precision state electoral maps that marginalize large swathes of voters in legislative elections.

Editorials: Redistricting in North Carolina should be fair and nonpartisan | Eva M. Clayton/News & Observer

North Carolina’s redistricting process continues to be disappointing – quite simply, the process has failed to meet the test of openness and transparency in our democracy. Earlier this summer, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling that North Carolina’s district maps were unconstitutional on the grounds that race was considered in drawing the maps. In response, the N.C. General Assembly recently released its new redistricting map for state House and Senate districts. Public hearings were held two days later with statistical information selectively provided a day before the hearing. Before the Supreme Court’s ruling, the state made limited modifications to the 12th and the 1st Congressional districts, maintaining the state’s 10-3 Republican congressional delegation majority. The Supreme Court ruled that this revised Congressional map was unconstitutional.

Maryland: Supreme Court denies speedy appeal of Maryland gerrymandering case | Frederick News-Post

The U.S. Supreme Court won’t hear a Maryland gerrymandering claim at the same time as a similar challenge from Wisconsin. The court issued an order Wednesday denying the motion of Republican plaintiffs to have their case before the court at the same time as Democratic plaintiffs from Wisconsin. In U.S. District Court, the plaintiffs — who include three Republican voters from Frederick County — argued that the redrawn districts amount to an unconstitutional violation of their First Amendment right to free speech. The case arrived at the Supreme Court after two U.S. District Court judges denied 6th District voters’ request for a preliminary injunction to require a new map before the 2018 election. The judges also decided to place a hold on the case until the Supreme Court considered the Wisconsin case.

North Carolina: Legislative maps done, GOP eyes judicial districts | Associated Press

With approval of new North Carolina legislative districts behind them, House Republicans returned Tuesday to Raleigh to advance their efforts to redraw election districts for trial court judges and local prosecutors. Unlike a federal court’s mandate to approve House and Senate districts before a Sept. 1 deadline, Republicans in the chamber aren’t being forced to perform redistricting on the boundaries for Superior Court and District Court judgeships and for district attorneys. In fact, a judicial expert from the UNC School of Government told representatives at the first meeting of the House judicial redistricting committee that wholesale changes to judicial maps haven’t been completed since the advent of the state’s modern court system in 1955.

Texas: Supreme Court puts redrawing of Texas political maps on hold | The Texas Tribune

The U.S. Supreme Court has dealt a serious setback to those hoping Texas would see new congressional and House district maps ahead of the 2018 elections. In separate orders issued Tuesday, the high court blocked two lower court rulings that invalidated parts of those maps where lawmakers were found to have discriminated against voters of color. The justices’ 5-4 decisions stay the rulings — which would have required new maps — as they take up an appeal from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan dissented from the majority opinion. The development could upend efforts to get a new map in place ahead of the 2018 elections. After years of legal wrangling, Texans and the minority rights groups suing over the maps were finally set to hash out new maps in court last week, but those hearings were canceled as the Supreme Court asked for responses from the minority rights groups to the state’s emergency request for the high court to intervene. 

Editorials: The Supreme Court should strike down Wisconsin’s gerrymandering | The Washington Post

The Supreme Court has long kept a distance from arguments over gerrymandering, that most American practice of redrawing the lines of legislative districts in order to tip elections toward the party in power. But early next month, the justices will hear a challenge to the 2011 redrawing of Wisconsin’s state legislative map by Republican lawmakers — a demonstration of how increasingly powerful technology allows partisan mapmakers to distort representation with ever-greater precision. Using computer modeling, Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled legislature produced districts so unbalanced that, in 2012, Republicans won a supermajority in the state assembly even after losing the popular vote. And the state GOP continued to entrench that hold in 2014 and 2016, even after winning only slim majorities of the vote.

National: Congressional redistricting less contentious when resolved using computer algorithm | phys.org

Concerns that the process of U.S. congressional redistricting may be politically biased have fueled many debates, but a team of University of Illinois computer scientists and engineers has developed a new computer algorithm that may make the task easier for state legislatures and fairer for their constituents. “United States congressional district maps are redrawn every 10 years in response to national census data, and this process empowers every state legislature to decide how they will carve up each of their congressional districts,” said Illinois professor of computer science Sheldon H. Jacobson. “One of the problems is that this can lead to oddly shaped and dispersed districts that favor one political agenda over another.” The researchers’ study, performed in collaboration with Douglas M. King, a lecturer of industrial and enterprise systems engineering, proposes a new, geographically based and data-driven algorithm that allows a user to specify the goal that guides the creation of the districts, then creates the districts computationally while enforcing other requirements, such as each district being a contiguous area. Their algorithm speeds up computations by gleaning insight from the geography of the state.

North Carolina: Two Republicans say they accidentally asked the Supreme Court to end gerrymandering | News & Observer

Two of the three North Carolina lawmakers who had joined with prominent national politicians to oppose gerrymandering have now backtracked, saying they didn’t mean to add their names on an anti-gerrymandering letter sent to the Supreme Court. Rep. Mark Meadows and Rep. Walter Jones, both Republicans, signed on to the legal brief along with Democratic Rep. David Price. Meadows blamed an “error” and Jones blamed “miscommunication” for their participation. Meadows also made a point to say he supports the N.C. General Assembly, which is in charge of drawing the state’s lines for its members of Congress. That means Price is now the only one of North Carolina’s 15 members of Congress who remains involved in the anti-gerrymandering efforts at the Supreme Court. The Chapel Hill lawmaker’s office confirmed Friday that he didn’t sign his name accidentally.

Texas: Court losses in voting cases could affect 2018 elections | San Antonio Express-News

With two federal courts again blasting Texas for “intentional discrimination” against blacks and Hispanics in drawing political boundaries, concern is mounting that voter rights litigation could upend the state’s 2018 elections calendar. State officials insisted Friday that they expect to stop the court challenges on appeal and reverse Texas’ losing streak on the voting rights lawsuits; legal experts predicted that Texas could end up back under federal supervision of its elections rules if the appeals fail. In short, the court fight is shaping up as a political game of chicken, with significant consequences no matter how it turns out. “In both of the cases where there are new decisions, the courts have ruled that Texas has purposefully maintained ‘intentional discrimination’ in the way it drew its maps,” said Michael Li, an expert on Texas redistricting who is senior counsel with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

Virginia: Redistricting proponents say public support is growing | The Virginian Pilot

Advocates for weakening the clout of state legislators to control how Virginia draws its legislative and congressional districts said Sunday there’s greater public interests in reforms, but time is running short before the next redistricting. Speaking at a forum before about 80 people in the Unitarian Church of Norfolk, Brian Cannon, executive director of OneVirginia2021, said there’s a growing sentiment that party politics and legislators worried about their own elections have too much sway over redistricting decisions.

Texas: Delay of Game: Texas Redistricting Delays Could Cause Election Chaos | US News & World Report

After roughly six years battling the state in court, groups representing minority voters got what looked like a solid win late last month. In mid-August, a federal court ruled Texas had clearly drawn political districts to put voters of color at a disadvantage, so the maps would have to be redrawn, and in a hurry – the 2018 midterm elections are coming up fast. But that victory could be short-lived. Just a week after the lower court ordered Texas to draft new voting districts as the clock ticked towards midterm elections, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito hit the pause button. In a one-paragraph order, he temporarily blocked the new districts from being drawn. The developments essentially put Texas in a court-ordered holding pattern on voting laws and districts, just 14 months ahead of next year’s midterm elections. It’s forced political candidates to wait before filing paperwork and launching campaigns, and it’s left voters uncertain about where they can vote, who they’re voting for and what documents they’ll need, if any, to cast a ballot. But Texas isn’t alone: Eight states are in the midst of litigation over voting districts, including three cases currently on appeal to the Supreme Court. At the same time, four of them – Virginia, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Pennsylvania – are major political battleground states that could help determine the balance of power in Congress and whether President Donald Trump wins re-election in 2020.

National: Republicans split over gerrymandering case headed to Supreme Court | The Washington Post

A long list of prominent Republicans is urging the Supreme Court to find that extreme partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional, saying the practice of drawing electoral lines to benefit one party or another is detrimental to democracy. It puts those Republicans on opposing sides from groups such as the Republican National Committee and the party’s congressional campaign committee, which are supporting Wisconsin’s GOP-led legislature in a major high court case to be heard next month. A lower court found lawmakers drew maps that so favored Republican candidates that they violated the constitutional right of equal protection.

Voting Blogs: What is Extreme Gerrymandering? | Brennan Center for Justice

Gerrymandering is the term used in the United States to describe the intentional manipulation of district boundaries to discriminate against a group of voters on the basis of their politics or race. The term dates to 1812 when Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry signed into law a redistricting plan that included a district that many thought looked like a salamander, leading opponents to nickname the district after him. But while the term has become a synonym for redistricting abuses, it actually covers a wide variety of sins, not all of which are related. For example, one form of gerrymandering involves making a district super safe for an incumbent. Likewise, sometimes districts are drawn so a powerful lawmaker’s brother-in-law or another favored candidate can successfully run for office. These types of gerrymanders – which often occur through bipartisan collusion between political parties –can be harmful to democracy by pre-determining outcomes and depriving voters of a meaningful choice. But Gill v. Whitford involves another variant of political gerrymandering that is even more pernicious. 

Editorials: End gerrymandering now, before the next census | The Denver Post

We applaud the Colorado’s League of Women Voters for its effort to curtail gerrymandering ahead of the 2020 census, and wish the non-partisan group luck in its endeavor. While we will withhold judgment of the organization’s proposal until we see the final language and whether it qualifies for the ballot this year, we’re encouraged that someone is stepping up to make this system of drawing districts more fair to voters of all political views. For too long the redistricting of Colorado’s congressional districts and state legislative districts have fallen victim to the underhanded strategies of both Republicans and Democrats who are trying to get the upper hand in the next decade’s elections.

Editorials: One less excuse for Maryland Democrats to reject redistricting reform | Baltimore Sun

Ask most Maryland Democratic leaders about partisan gerrymandering, and they’ll tell you it’s a horrible problem. They’ll say that is contrary to the principles of democracy, that it lets politicians choose their voters rather than the other way around and that it contributes to hyper-partisanship in Congress and state legislatures. Ask them to do something about it — as numerous good-government advocacy groups, editorial boards and Gov. Larry Hogan have done — and you’ll hear a different story. Taking the task of drawing congressional and legislative district lines out of the self-interested hands of Democrats in Maryland would amount to unilateral surrender, they say, and they have no interest in that unless Republicans start doing the same in the states where they have controlled the process for their own gain.

North Carolina: Republicans defend maps before Wisconsin redistricting SCOTUS case | News & Observer

As a key U.S. Supreme Court case on gerrymandering looms, North Carolina Republicans are pushing back against the criticism of their own political maps. Racially motivated gerrymandering is unconstitutional, and within the past two years North Carolina has had to redraw its U.S. House, N.C. House and N.C. Senate districts after all were found to have disenfranchised black voters. The three maps found unconstitutional were drawn in 2011 by Republican state legislators, shortly after they took control of the N.C. General Assembly that year. However, federal courts have long avoided deciding whether politically motivated gerrymandering is also unconstitutional. Democrats for years drew lines to help their party, and Republicans have done the same. Democratic Sen. Jeff Jackson of Charlotte said that of the 4,300 written comments legislators received on the most recent round of redistricting, fewer than 1 percent were in favor.

Texas: Supreme Court’s Intervention Complicates Texas Redistricting Case, Puzzles Attorneys | KUT

The U.S. Supreme Court did something out of the ordinary last week: It responded to an appeal when there was technically nothing to appeal. Justice Samuel Alito temporarily blocked a ruling that found two congressional districts in Texas discriminated against minorities. Attorneys representing plaintiffs in the case aren’t entirely sure why he responded to the state’s appeal, however. “There are a number of decision points and if it sounds complicated, welcome to Texas redistricting,” Michael Li, a redistricting expert with the Brennan Center for Justice, says. A federal district court in San Antonio ruled last month on the constitutionality of the congressional map – but the scope of the ruling was just the constitutionality. Specifically, the court found that two districts violated the Voting Rights Act. But the lower court didn’t do anything that Texas officials could appeal, says Jose Garza, an attorney representing plaintiffs.

National: Prominent Republicans Urge Supreme Court to End Gerrymandering | The New York Times

Breaking ranks with many of their fellow Republicans, a group of prominent politicians filed briefs on Tuesday urging the Supreme Court to rule that extreme political gerrymandering — the drawing of voting districts to give lopsided advantages to the party in power — violates the Constitution. The briefs were signed by Republicans including Senator John McCain of Arizona; Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio; Bob Dole, the former Republican Senate leader from Kansas and the party’s 1996 presidential nominee; the former senators John C. Danforth of Missouri, Richard G. Lugar of Indiana and Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming; and Arnold Schwarzenegger, a former governor of California. “Partisan gerrymandering has become a tool for powerful interests to distort the democratic process,” reads a brief filed by Mr. McCain and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case, Gill v. Whitford, No. 16-1161, on Oct. 3.

Colorado: Group files to put redistricting reform on 2018 ballot in a bid to end gerrymandering | The Denver Post

A bipartisan coalition backed by two former governors on Wednesday took the first step toward putting redistricting reform on the 2018 ballot, filing three initiatives that the group hopes will lead to more competitive elections in Colorado. The three ballot initiatives seek to dilute the influence of the two major political parties in the state’s redistricting process by putting more unaffiliated voters on the commissions tasked with drawing the lines for state legislative and congressional districts. Led by the nonpartisan League of Women Voters of Colorado and former state Rep. Kathleen Curry, a political independent, the effort has some high-profile backers in both parties.

North Carolina: Lawmakers asked the public to comment on political maps. Here’s the response they got. | News & Observer

When legislators were in the middle of debating changes to North Carolina House and Senate districts last month, they were legally required to seek public input. But they don’t appear to have listened too intently. Of the more than 4,300 written comments that legislators received on redistricting, just 38 were positive, according to Sen. Jeff Jackson, a Charlotte Democrat, who said he got the data from General Assembly staff. “That means 99.2 percent of the comments were opposed to precisely what the redistricting committee went ahead and did anyway — which was to draw the maps to favor one party,” Jackson wrote in a post on the Charlotte Agenda news website.

Texas: Where things stand in Texas redistricting court battle | The Texas Tribune

After years of legal wrangling, Texas and its court challengers — groups representing voters of color — were finally set to hash out new congressional and state House maps after judges ruled the current maps discriminated against minority voters. But the U.S. Supreme Court’s intervention last week added a new wrinkle to one of the most complicated redistricting cases moving through the courts. With the clock ticking toward the 2018 elections, it’s now unclear whether Texas voters will be electing their representatives using new maps. Here’s where things stand. Following the 2010 census, which showed massive growth in the state’s population, Texas lawmakers in 2011 redrew political maps to account for population changes. But those maps were promptly challenged by Texas voters, the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, the NAACP and other minority rights groups that alleged the maps violated the federal Voting Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution.