Editorials: Why the Wisconsin redistricting lawsuit will win | Matthew Flynn/Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

I had the good fortune to serve as a law clerk to the Honorable Thomas E. Fairchild, chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, the year after I graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School. Fairchild was one of the most respected federal judges in the country, and many of his opinions are still cited as precedent. I once asked him the secret to courtroom advocacy, and he said “Matt, make me want you to win. If a judge wants you to win, the judge will find a way to do it.” The redistricting lawsuit pending in federal court is very likely to result in the court’s overturning the present imbalanced legislative districts, but not for the reasons most people think. The decision itself is likely to be couched in terms of “packing” (loading large Democratic majorities, usually minorities, in safe districts, resulting in overwhelming Democratic margins), and “cracking” (diluting the remaining Democratic votes in what could be competitive districts to ensure a Republican victory no matter whom the Democrats nominate). But the reasons why the three-judge panel will want the redistricting position to win are more profound.

Virginia: Supreme Court to Review Virginia Redistricting Case | Wall Street Journal

The Supreme Court on Monday said it would intervene in another political redistricting case from Virginia to consider whether state office voting lines were racially gerrymandered. The high court earlier this year examined whether the Republican-led state legislature discriminated against African-Americans in the way they drew Virginia’s districts for the U.S. Congress, a case that ended without a ruling on the merits. In the earlier case a lower court said lawmakers had illegally packed black voters into one district, diluting their influence in other districts. That litigation ended after the Supreme Court said three Republican congressmen didn’t have legal standing to appeal.

National: How racial gerrymandering deprives black people of political power | The Washington Post

Thirty years ago, the Supreme Court expanded the meaning of one of the most important civil rights laws in U.S. history — the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Among other things, the court prohibited a then-common practice among some states of spreading minorities across voting districts, leaving them too few in number in any given district to elect their preferred candidates. The practice became known as “racial gerrymandering.” The court’s solution required that states create majority-minority districts — districts in which the majority of the voting-age population belonged to a single minority. With voting that occurred largely along racial lines, these districts allowed minority voters to elect their candidates of choice. But a fascinating development occurred in the years since. These districts, rather than giving African Americans more political power, might have actually started to deprive them of it. Majority-minority districts, by concentrating the minority vote in certain districts, have the unintended consequence of diluting their influence elsewhere. Experts say some Republican legislatures have capitalized on this new reality, redistricting in their political favor under the guise of majority-minority districts.

North Carolina: How North Carolina’s new district map caused a chaotic congressional primary | The Guardian

North Carolina congresswoman Alma Adams was sitting in a campaign meeting at her headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina, in early February, planning for what should have been an easy primary win. No Democratic challengers had declared their candidacy in time for the 15 March election. Victory was all but guaranteed. Before the meeting ended, one of her staffers interrupted with some unexpected news. A panel of three federal judges had ruled that the 12th district’s congressional map – which resembled a serpent slithering across central North Carolina’s cities – was unconstitutional due to racial gerrymandering. The district would need to be redrawn, the judges said. It was a win for racial justice, legal observers said. But the map redrawing that followed – the latest episode in a decades-old legal saga over the district lines – wasn’t a win for voter enfranchisement this election, in this deep blue district where the primary is likely to decide the race. When state lawmakers two weeks later redrew most of the state’s districts, the 70-year-old black Greensboro lawmaker discovered her home was nearly two hours away from the new Charlotte-centric district.

North Carolina: Legislators say redistricting emails, other info protected from public scrutiny | Greensboro News & Record

State legislators say they won’t turn over more information about the new voting districts they drew last year for the Greensboro City Council. The legislators are fighting subpoenas from a group of local residents suing to stop the redistricting because of racial gerrymandering. The new districts are scheduled to take effect for the 2017 election. On Monday, lawyers for the N.C. Attorney General’s Office said the information is protected from public view because of “legislative privilege.” In their filing in U.S. District Court in Greensboro, they said the legislators have given the residents’ attorneys all the information that’s not covered by legislative privilege. The Greensboro residents, who are being represented by the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, asked a judge last month to force the legislators to turn over the information.

Virginia: Supreme Court takes case claiming racial gerrymandering in Virginia | Politico

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a Virginia case that could clarify how much consideration of race is permissible when legislatures or other bodies redraw district lines. The justices announced Monday that they will wade into a legal challenge to Virginia’s 2011 redistricting for the state House of Delegates. Civil rights groups and Democrats criticized the GOP-led process for packing too many African-American voters into so-called majority-minority districts. “This case gives the Supreme Court the opportunity to further clarify how exactly to determine whether race has been taken into account too much in the drawing of district lines,” said Rick Hasen, a professor of election law at University of California at Irvine. “It’s kind of a Goldilocks problem. You must take race into account somewhat to comply with the Voting Rights Act, but if you take into account too much the racial considerations you can get in trouble as well. The question is how do you know when you’ve gotten it just right.”

North Carolina: Federal judges uphold congressional maps | News & Observer

A panel of federal judges Thursday rejected the most recent challenge of North Carolina’s newly drawn congressional districts. In the unanimous decision, the three district judges left open the possibility for a different lawsuit to weigh the question of blatant partisan gerrymandering. The effect is that maps drawn by the legislature’s Republican leadership in February remain valid as voters cast early ballots in the primary election to decide which congressional candidates are on the ballot in November. The ruling came almost four months after the General Assembly redrew congressional lines in a response to a court order declaring two of North Carolina’s districts unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. In March, attorneys for David Harris of Durham and Christine Bowser of Mecklenburg County asked the three-judge panel to reject the new maps as “a blatant, unapologetic partisan gerrymander” that provided no legal remedy to the 2011 maps that were struck down on Feb. 5. The challengers also argued that the new maps intentionally limited minority representation.

Wisconsin: Redistricting trial wrapped up | Wisconsin Gazette

Wisconsin Assembly district boundaries that Republicans drew up five years ago have robbed Democratic-leaning voters of their voices, attorneys argued as they wrapped up a federal trial over whether the lines are constitutional. Gerald Hebert, an attorney for a group of voters who sued over the boundaries, told the panel the boundaries represent the worst example of gerrymandering in modern history and punish Democrats and their supporters by diluting their voting strength. “Their right to vote is fundamental,” Hebert said during closing arguments. “It’s our voice in the government. It’s the only voice many of us have. It’s not right to target people and harm them because of their voting history. What did they do? They had the nerve to participate in the political process and go to the polls.”

Wisconsin: Arguments conclude in redistricting case in federal court | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Wisconsin Assembly district boundaries that Republicans drew up five years ago have robbed Democratic-leaning voters of their voices, attorneys argued Friday as they wrapped up a federal trial over whether the lines are constitutional. Gerald Hebert, an attorney for a group of voters who sued over the boundaries, told the panel that the boundaries represent the worst example of gerrymandering in modern history and punish Democrats and their supporters by diluting their voting strength. “Their right to vote is fundamental,” Hebert said during closing arguments. “It’s our voice in the government. It’s the only voice many of us have. It’s not right to target people and harm them because of their voting history. What did they do? They had the nerve to participate in the political process and go to the polls.”

Virginia: Justices Let Court-Imposed Redistricting Stand in Virginia | The New York Times

The Supreme Court on Monday left in place a court-imposed congressional redistricting map in Virginia, dismissing a challenge from three Republican congressmen. The court’s brief, unanimous decision said the members of Congress had not shown that they had suffered the sort of direct and concrete injury that gave them standing to sue. The court, therefore, did not rule on the larger issues in the case, Wittman v. Personhuballah, No. 14-1504, which concerned the role race may play in drawing legislative maps. “We cannot decide the merits of this case unless the intervenor members of Congress challenging the district court’s racial-gerrymandering decision have standing,” Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote for the court. “We conclude that the intervenors now lack standing. We must therefore dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.”

Colorado: Group explores shifting to a presidential primary | The Colorado Independent

Republicans and Democrats alike said they wanted Colorado to have a presidential primary after a messy caucus night in March. With no legislative solution this session, a handful of Republican senators have formed an unofficial organization, the Colorado Elections Study Group, to look at whether Colorado should bring back a presidential primary. The group includes Sens. Laura Woods of Arvada, Ray Scott of Grand Junction, Jerry Sonnenberg of Sterling, Kevin Grantham of Cañon City and Kevin Lundberg of Berthoud. The group will hold its first meeting at 1 p.m. on June 11 at the Capitol. “Our experience with the primary bills showed that finding consensus on this topic isn’t easy, given the wide array of opinions and interests involved, but we think more progress can be made,” Grantham said in a statement.

Wisconsin: New Federal Trial Eyes Legislative Map | Wisconsin Public Radio

A federal trial begins on Tuesday in a lawsuit against Wisconsin’s Republican-drawn legislative map, and while it’s not the first such challenge, this one is unique. In some ways, Wisconsin has been here before. Republican legislators drew this map in 2011. Democrats sued, and in 2012, a federal judicial panel left most of the map intact. Under normal circumstances that would be the end of the story. But the case going to trial on Tuesday isn’t normal, and the coalition of groups seeking to overturn the map say Wisconsin’s redistricting experience was anything but typical. “Wisconsin is the most extreme partisan gerrymander in the United States in the post-2010 cycle,” said attorney Gerry Hebert, who’s the executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign Legal Center. “It’s about as far out from what you would consider to be fair as you can imagine.” Legislatures get a chance to redraw their political districts every decade after the U.S. Census. When state government is divided between Republicans and Democrats, they usually don’t agree on a map and the job falls to a court. When one party runs everything in state government, it can draw the map it wants, which is what happened in 2011.

Illinois: Group submits signatures for Illinois redistricting amendment | The Daily Northwestern

A nonpartisan Illinois citizens group submitted 65,000 pages of signatures to the Illinois State Board of Elections earlier this month for a petition calling for a constitutional amendment to change redistricting procedures in light of the coming November elections. Independent Maps — a statewide coalition composed of volunteers and state business, philanthropic, religious and political groups — collected and delivered more than 570,000 signatures to the election board’s Springfield office on May 6. The petitions call for an amendment to be placed on state ballots for a vote this November. The amendment would take the power of redrawing state legislative districts away from legislators and give it to an independent commission.

Arizona: Renewed Republican Redistricting Revenge! Arizona Legislature Using Budgetary Power To Possibly Limit Map Defense | Arizona’s Politics

n the wake of two GOP defeats at the U.S. Supreme Court, Republicans at the Arizona Legislature are using their budgetary powers to sweep $695,000 from the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (“AIRC”). The funds were to be used in defending a state court action brought by key Republican lawmakers (and others) as that case heads towards trial next year. Arizona Governor Doug Ducey signed a new budget into law yesterday. It contains $1.1M for the entire Independent Redistricting Commission budget. That amount is not enough to cover the expected legal expenses for the Leach v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission case, which has already cost taxpayers $1.5M. Primarily because the Leach case had been placed on the back burner (by the parties and the court) while the (GOP-controlled) Legislature brought its constitutional challenge to the Supreme Court (2015) and Republican interests brought their challenge to the maps to the Supreme Court (2016), the AIRC currently has $695,000 in unspent appropriations from 2014 and 2015.

Illinois: Madigan’s Democratic lawyer sues to block redistricting reform referendum | Chicago Tribune

An attorney who’s long been a close ally of Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan has filed a lawsuit trying to block voters from considering a proposed constitutional amendment that seeks to remove some of the influence of partisan politics from how state House and Senate district boundaries are drawn. The suit was brought by the People’s Map, the same group of prominent racial and ethnic minorities that sued two years ago to keep a similar referendum question off the 2014 ballot. Their attorney is Michael Kasper, general counsel for Madigan’s Illinois Democratic Party. The legal move comes less than a week after the Independent Maps coalition filed more than 570,000 petition signatures with the State Board of Elections in the first step toward putting the proposed amendment on the Nov. 8 ballot — almost double the minimum required.

Illinois: Voters Could See Two Redistricting Reform Choices on November Ballot | Huffington Post

Two years after a lawsuit backed by House Speaker Michael Madigan kept a citizen-led redistricting reform effort off the ballot, Madigan himself voted to get an anti-gerrymandering amendment before voters on Nov. 8. By a 105-7 vote, the House approved a constitutional amendment sponsored by Rep. Jack Franks, D-Marengo, that proposes removing politicians from the drawing of state legislative district maps and creating an independent commission overseen by the Illinois Supreme Court. The amendment, HJRCA 58, now moves to the Senate. If the amendment receives 36 votes in the Senate, it would be placed on the ballot for consideration by voters. Tuesday’s vote was a landmark in Illinois politics as reform groups for decades have decried the highly political process of re-drawing legislative maps every 10 years following the U.S. Census. The opportunity to control boundary-making has long been the most coveted prize of both political parties, who have skillfully used the once-a-decade redistricting to more securely embed incumbents of their own party and punish lawmakers of the opposite party.

Virginia: Taxpayer costs approach $4 million in election lawsuits | Daily Press

Taxpayers have spent $3.7 million and counting on private attorneys in three redistricting lawsuits, as well as a fourth case targeting the state’s voter ID law. That includes nearly $180,000 billed so far by a state senator’s law firm, which represents her colleagues from both sides of the aisle in their ongoing effort to keep secret emails about the 2011 drawing of election maps. Those four state senators, as well as two former ones, each face $100 daily fines for not complying with a court order to turn those documents over. Unless a pending appeal before the state Supreme Court succeeds, taxpayers will be liable for the fines.

Illinois: House backs Democratic redistricting amendment | Reuters

A Democratic bid to transfer the highly coveted political power of drawing legislative boundaries from state lawmakers to the Democratically controlled Illinois Supreme Court overwhelmingly passed the state House of Representatives on Tuesday. The proposed amendment to Illinois’ constitution sailed through the House on a 105-7 vote and now must be approved by a three-fifths majority in the state Senate by Friday in order to be placed on the Nov. 8 general election ballot. Since Democrats controlled the state legislature and the governor’s office after the 2010 census, they won the once-a-decade right to draw new legislative district boundaries. The process enabled the party to build super-majorities in both the Senate and House.

Kansas: Six years in advance, Kansas officials gear up for 2022 redistricting | Lawrence Journal World

Kansas lawmakers won’t have to redraw congressional and legislative district maps for another six years, but state and federal officials aren’t waiting that long to get ready for the process. Officials from the U.S. Census Bureau met Tuesday with staff from the Legislature’s nonpartisan Research Department to review the process they’ll use and get familiar with the types of data and computer software that will be essential in the next round of redistricting. “It’s a long process, so we want to get information out early so folks can start preparing whatever material they need — geographic information; software — so they can start thinking about how they’re going to implement the program when it comes time to actually start redistricting,” said Michael Ratcliffe, the Census Bureau’s assistant division chief for geographic standards in Washington.

Virginia: State Supreme Court takes up legislative privilege case | Daily Press

The Supreme Court of Virginia has accepted a portion of an ongoing redistricting case, saying it will mull what correspondence legislators must release about their work drawing election maps, and what they may keep secret. The question is a key one before a lawsuit that targets nearly a dozen legislative districts over state constitutional concerns can move forward, but the high court’s decision could also set precedent when it comes to the release of legislative documents in court cases. Both sides – redistricting advocates connected to a group called OneVirginia2021 and state senators looking to protect emails under a legislative immunity clause in the Virginia Constitution – asked for the state Supreme Court to hear the matter. The broader case sits in City of Richmond Circuit Court. The high court’s decision, announced in a court order Wednesday, means the matter will skip the state Court of Appeals.

Florida: Rep. Corrine Brown appeals to U.S. Supreme Court | News Service of Florida

When the Florida Supreme Court considered a dramatic change to the shape of Democratic Congresswoman Corrine Brown’s district last year, she promised to “go all the way to the United States Supreme Court” if necessary to preserve her electoral territory. Brown has made good on her promise. On Monday, the 12-term congresswoman appealed to the nation’s highest court in an effort to unwind a plan to rotate her district from a north-south orientation that includes her power bases of Jacksonville and Orlando to an east-west seat that stretches from Jacksonville to Gadsden County, carving up Tallahassee along the way.

Arizona: Supreme Court Upholds Arizona Voting Districts Drawn by Independent Panel | Wall Street Journal

The Supreme Court Wednesday upheld Arizona state legislative districts drawn by an independent commission, rejecting claims by Republican voters that slight population deviations favoring Democrats violated the Constitution. The Constitution “does not demand mathematical perfection” when states equalize population among legislative districts, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for a unanimous court. Republican voters claimed that the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, created by a 2000 voter initiative to reduce partisan influence over political representation, overpopulated GOP-leaning districts and underpopulated Democrat-leaning ones, effectively increasing Democratic voting strength.

Florida: Court rejects bid to throw out Florida congressional map | Associated Press

Florida’s long, twisted legal drama over its congressional districts may finally be reaching its end after a panel on federal judges on Monday rejected a push by U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown to throw out the current district boundaries.n Brown, a veteran member of Congress, argued that the current map, which dramatically altered her Jacksonville district, violates federal voting laws because it diluted the voting rights of minorities. But the panel of three judges disagreed sharply and said that Brown and her attorneys had not produced evidence to prove her case. Brown, who had previously vowed to keep up the fight as long as she could, said in a brief statement that she was “extremely disappointed” and is reviewing the ruling with her attorneys. Any appeal, however, would go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court since a three-judge panel handled the initial decision. The decision could have immediate reverberations because the new map upends the state’s political landscape and could lead to the defeat of several incumbents. The current map was approved by the state Supreme Court in December after a lengthy battle.

Arizona: Supreme Court Upholds Arizona’s Redrawn Legislative Map | The New York Times

The Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously upheld an Arizona state legislative map drawn by an independent redistricting commission, rejecting a challenge from Republicans who said the map was too favorable to Democrats. The court last year upheld the commission’s role in drawing congressional maps, ruling that Arizona’s voters were entitled to try to make the process of drawing district lines less partisan by creating an independent redistricting commission. Wednesday’s decision in Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, No 14-232, concerned a challenge from voters who said the state map the commission drew after the 2010 census violated the principle of “one person one vote” and was infected by unconstitutional partisanship.

Illinois: Senate approves redistricting amendment | Quad City Times

The Illinois Senate has approved a proposed amendment to the state Constitution that would change the way legislative and congressional districts are drawn but rejected one that would have eliminated the lieutenant governor’s office. Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, sponsored the redistricting amendment, which is similar to one the Senate approved in 2010 that failed to win approval in the House. Unlike a current proposal from House Democrats and another backed by the group Independent Maps, Raoul’s measure would leave the task of redrawing boundaries largely in the hands of state lawmakers. “Here in the state of Illinois, we are fortunate to have a state with a diverse population,” Raoul said, arguing that his measure would do the most to protect influence of minority voters.

Florida: Rep. Brown considers options after redistricting setback | Orlando Sentinel

Florida’s 27 congressional districts drawn by state courts will remain intact, after a federal appeals court upheld the new maps in a ruling issued late Monday. The ruling is another setback for U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville, and her quest to hold onto her seat. State courts affirmed a redrawing of districts in January after a lawsuit brought by voters groups claimed that Republican state lawmakers packed too many black voters into her current district, which snakes down from Jacksonville into Orlando. The new district runs from Jacksonville west into Tallahassee.

Nebraska: Murante won’t contest redistricting reform veto | Lincoln Journal Star

Sen. John Murante of Gretna has decided not to attempt to override Gov. Pete Ricketts’ veto of a redistricting reform bill that was negotiated for more than two years with Sen. Heath Mello of Omaha. Responding to the governor’s stated constitutional concerns about the proposal, Murante said: “Redistricting is too important. We must get it right. “The good news,” he said, “is that we have time to do so.” Redistricting would not occur again until 2021 following the 2020 U.S. census. Ricketts questioned the constitutionality of the bill (LB580) in his veto announcement on Monday and suggested that it would, in fact, inject more partisan politics into the process rather than achieve the desired result of distancing redistricting from partisan political pressures.

Florida: Court rejects Corrine Brown’s bid to throw out congressional map | Florida Politics

A panel of federal judges Monday shot down U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown‘s challenge of Florida’s congressional redistricting. In a 26-page order, the three judges said Brown had “not proven (her) case and that defendants are entitled to judgment in their favor.” The defendants include the League of Women Voters of Florida, Common Cause and others who last year forced a redrawing of Florida’s congressional district map. Brown had asked the court to set aside her redrawn seat, the 5th Congressional District. The Jacksonville Democrat has said her new district violates federal voting laws by cutting down the influence of minority voters. Instead, the judges rejected her request for a preliminary injunction prohibiting the state from enforcing the new district. But because their order “resolved the merits of this case,” the case is essentially over.

Nebraska: ‘Unconstitutional, unelected and unaccountable’: Ricketts vetoes bill to revamp how political maps are drawn | Omaha World-Herald

Gov. Pete Ricketts on Monday vetoed a bill that would create an independent commission of citizens to redraw the state’s political maps. In a letter to lawmakers, Ricketts called Legislative Bill 580 a major policy shift that’s unconstitutional because elected lawmakers, not members of a commission, are required to redistrict every 10 years. He argued that the commission could amount to a “hyper-partisan” body composed of former political party activists and elected officials. “At stake are the voting rights of all Nebraskans,” Ricketts said.

North Carolina: Experts: Shifting demographics make case for redistricting reform | WRAL

North Carolina’s growing populations mean gerrymandered districts drawn for partisan advantage could backfire on their sponsors, a pair of University of North Carolina professors said Tuesday. Rebecca Tippett, director of Carolina Demography at the Carolina Population Center at UNC-Chapel Hill, and Mark Nance, a political science professor at North Carolina State University, spoke at a news conference sponsored by Rep. Duane Hall, D-Wake, and the NC Coalition for Lobbying and Government Reform. The coalition has been pushing lawmakers to create an independent commission to draw the geographic districts in which members of the U.S. House, the state House and the state Senators run. North Carolina has faced frequent lawsuits over its voting districts, including one in which the federal courts ruled this spring that two of the state’s 13 congressional districts were so gerrymandered as to be unconstitutional.