Florida: Lawmakers set the stage for special session on redrawing district maps | News Service of Florida

Legislative leaders hope to have a new map of the 40 state Senate districts done by 3 p.m. on Nov. 6, according to the official “call” of a special redistricting session scheduled to begin in two weeks. House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, and Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, issued the call Monday for the special session, which will start at noon Oct. 19. Legislative leaders earlier announced the dates of the session, but the call provides formal details. Lawmakers have to draw new Senate districts as part of a settlement with voting-rights organizations and voters who sued to overturn the existing map under the anti-gerrymandering “Fair Districts” redistricting standards approved by voters in 2010. The current map was drawn in 2012, following the once-a-decade U.S. Census.

Florida: Judge to Unveil Redistricting Map | Wall Street Journal

A Florida judge is poised to unveil his plan for reshaping the state’s congressional boundaries, the latest chapter in a contentious and increasingly messy effort to strip away partisan politics from redistricting. At the instruction of the Florida Supreme Court, Leon County Circuit Judge Terry Lewis is weighing seven proposals for redrawing boundaries advanced by the Republican-led legislative chambers and Democrat-allied voter groups. The state high court set a deadline of Oct. 17 for him to recommend a new map based on guidelines they issued in their ruling. Lawyers say Judge Lewis could release his plan as early as this week.

New York: Evenwel Could Have Tremendous Impact on New York Senate & Assembly Districts | New York Election News

Today’s New York Times editorializes on how two Texas voters in the Evenwel case are challenging the use of overall population for redistricting. “They want to force the state to count only the number of voters in apportioning districts. This approach, besides being at odds with long-accepted practice, is both inflexible and impractical. The census, which provides the data that most states use, counts people, not voters,” The Times editorial continues, “the plaintiffs know that getting rid of a system that counts all people would hurt Democratic-leaning urban areas with large, noncitizen Latino populations, and would favor rural and conservative areas where more Republicans live. In other words, the suit is an effort to transfer political power from Democratic to Republican regions. The Supreme Court has never required that states follow this or any other specific method of apportionment, and there is no reason to start now.”

Texas: State Wants Supreme Court to Strike Legal-Fee Award in Voting Case | National Law Journal

Texas wants the U.S. Supreme Court to review an order that forces the state to pay more than $1 million in legal fees to groups that challenged the state’s redistricting plans. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in August ordered Texas to pay the fees, finding lawyers for the state essentially forfeited the issue by failing to make substantive arguments in the lower court. On Thursday, Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller said in court papers that the state planned to appeal to the Supreme Court. Keller didn’t say when his office would file the petition. A spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office was not immediately available for comment. Paul Smith of Jenner & Block, who argued for the challengers in the D.C. Circuit and leads the firm’s appellate and Supreme Court practice, declined to comment.

Washington: State adopts opposing stance from Yakima in redistricting case | Yakima Herald

Yakima and the state of Washington are on opposing sides in a U.S. Supreme Court case seeking to define “one person, one vote.” The state Attorney General’s Office has joined 20 other states in filing a friend-of-the-court brief opposing the plaintiffs in Evenwel v. Abbott, a Texas redistricting case that could in effect overturn Yakima’s new district-based council election system. Yakima previously filed a brief in support of the plaintiffs, who are seeking to require state legislative districts be drawn by eligible voter population and not total population, as is currently the practice in all 50 states. The brief filed by the 21 states in opposition to Evenwel says requiring states to redistrict based on eligible voters would disrupt their “long reliance on well-settled redistricting practices,” adding that states lack any “reliable, administrable method” to carry out such a process.

Florida: House, Senate reach agreement on congressional redistricting | Jacksonville Business Journal

As congressional mapmakers defended their versions of districts in a hearing before a Tallahassee judge, the House and Senate announced Friday that they had reached agreement on how to move forward with a process to draw new lines for the state Senate in a special session starting next month. There were few revelations during Friday’s hearing on the congressional districts, expected to wrap up Monday. Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis is expected to either choose one of seven maps — offered by lawmakers, voting-rights organizations, and a group of voters backed by the Florida Democratic Party — or combine the maps in a new proposal. Ultimately, Lewis’ recommendation will go to the Florida Supreme Court, which ruled in July that a map approved by the Legislature in 2012 and tweaked two years later violated a voter-approved constitutional ban on political gerrymandering.

Indiana: Redistricting process under the microscope | NWI

Could the route toward increasing the competitiveness of Indiana elections and boosting voter participation turn on reforming how legislative district boundaries are drawn? A special 12-member study committee convened Thursday at the Statehouse to begin a two-year investigation into Indiana’s redistricting process. Currently, the General Assembly draws the maps for U.S. House, Indiana House and Indiana Senate districts every 10 years, after the U.S census tallies the state’s population. The only requirements for each district are that all parts of it be contiguous and that it be nearly equal in population to every other district of its type. Critics of legislative redistricting say those conditions provide lawmakers a significant opportunity to manipulate district lines in ways that advantage themselves or their political party.

Editorials: In Virginia’s sham democracy, voters are robbed at the ballot box | The Washington Post

In Virginia, the incumbent protection racket known as redistricting has ensured that another all-but-meaningless season of state legislative elections has arrived, and with it the predictable response — namely, apathy and wan turnout. That’s fine by the lawmakers who drew the commonwealth’s electoral map, and who evidently prefer that voters ratify the status quo than enjoy a genuine choice at the ballot. In legislative elections in November, a Republican faces a Democrat in just 29 of the 100 races for the House of Delegates. As for those 29, most feature underfunded challengers mounting quixotic races against entrenched incumbents; they are contests in name only. The picture for the state Senate isn’t much better. A Republican faces a Democrat in just 20 of the 40 seats; perhaps a half-dozen races will wind up being genuinely competitive. (In one nominal contest, state Sen. Thomas K. Norment Jr. (R-Williamsburg), a darling of corporate lobbyists, has a war chest approaching $2 million; his Democratic opponent has less than $10,000.) Taking the two chambers together, well over half of incumbents are running unopposed.

Editorials: Doubts about new redistricting case | Lyle Denniston/SCOTUSblog

The Supreme Court on Monday afternoon told lawyers involved in a new case on the constitutionality of a congressional election district in Virginia to file new briefs on whether the case can go forward in the Court. In a one-paragraph order issued along with two other procedural orders after the first Conference in advance of the new Term, the Court questioned whether current and former members of the House had a legal right to pursue their appeal. The Court has not yet agreed to hear the case, but it is in a form that would require the Court to act on it if it were properly filed. At the core of the case of Wittman v. Personhuballah is whether a sprawling District 3 was designed unconstitutionally because of the role that race played in drawing its boundaries. The only House district in Virginia with a majority of minority population, it starts north of Richmond and skips various cities on its way southward into the area around Norfolk and Newport News. It is now represented by a black Democrat, Rep. Bobby Scott. Its form has been described as resembling a “grasping claw.”

Florida: Fight over congressional map fueled by Senate power struggle | Miami Herald

Sen. Tom Lee, one of the Senate’s most powerful Republicans, took the stand Friday in the ongoing trial over how to configure Florida’s 27 congressional districts and said that he did not draw a district to benefit himself and he had no intention of running for Congress. It was a rare, personal moment in the unprecedented process that has reshaped how redistricting works in Florida. But, while the testimony was designed by the Senate to undercut attacks by the Republican-led House that the Senate map was drawn to benefit incumbent Republicans, it also exposed how the congressional trial is really just a practice run. Leaders in the House and Senate have concluded that the outcome of the trial will have a direct impact on the drawing of something more personal than congressional districts — the Senate map — because how the case is resolved could decide how much input legislators will have in shaping that plan.

Indiana: Battle lines: Redistricting changes under consideration | Herald Bulletin

n 2001, three Indiana senators represented portions of Madison County. Tim Lanane, D-Anderson, had a majority of the county; Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, had the western portion; and Doug Eckerty, R-Yorktown, had just one township, Van Buren in the northeastern corner of the county. In 2011, after districts were redrawn using the 2010 census, the state senate districts changed dramatically. Lanane’s 25th district, which had been exclusively in Madison County, is now mostly a Delaware County district. Kenley’s district has retreated back across the Hamilton County line, and Eckerty now represents all of Madison County except Anderson. “When they brought me in to show me my district, I almost didn’t recognize it,” Lanane said. “It basically got turned on its side.”

Voting Blogs: Muddying the Waters: Publishing Virginia’s Proposed Redistricting Remedies | State of Elections

The most recent action in Virginia’s ongoing redistricting saga involves a motion to make the proposed remedial plans available on a publicly accessible website. Perhaps ironically, it is the Defendants (Alcorn) suggesting that the proposals be posted online, while the Plaintiffs (Personhuballah) argues that general public input is not necessary or appropriate. Almost one year ago (October 7, 2014), a U.S. District Court (the Court) ordered that Virginia adopt a new redistricting plan before the next election of U.S. Representatives. It ordered the State’s General Assembly to remedy the constitutional violations found by the court. After the United States Supreme Court vacated that judgment and remanded the case in March of this year, the Court again ordered the General Assembly to draw and adopt new districts by September 1, 2015.

Florida: Redistricting court drama resumes; Supremes to review next month | Orlando Sentinel

Lawyers sparred over Florida’s congressional districts in court Thursday, the latest episode of a three-year battle that has left the state without political boundaries for the 2016 election. The case is in court because the Florida Supreme Court threw out the prior maps in July, ruling that GOP operatives had infiltrated the redistricting process and packed Democratic voters in District 5, a skinny district that snaked from Jacksonville to Orlando. Leon Circuit Judge Terry Lewis will now consider as many as seven proposals for the maps submitted by both chambers of the Legislature, the League of Women Voters and other plaintiffs. The trial will continue into next week, and Lewis will make a final decision and send it to the Supreme Court for review by Oct. 17. Already, litigation and special sessions related to redistricting have cost taxpayers about $11 million.

Florida: Redistricting hearing focuses on dispute over Miami districts | Miami Herald

The latest chapter in Florida’s redistricting saga played out Thursday in a Leon County courtroom as two Miami congressional districts emerged as the heart of the differences over which of seven maps should be the one chosen by the court. Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis must decide which map, or pieces of maps, he will recommend to the Florida Supreme Court by the Oct. 17 deadline. The court invalidated the map drawn by the Legislature in 2012 because it violated the constitutional ban on protecting incumbents and political parties. After the Legislature reached a stalemate in a special session, the high court ordered Lewis to choose from proposals from the House, Senate and the group of voters who successfully challenged the original map.

Michigan: Partisan redistricting at ‘heart’ of voter frustration, says Michigan group exploring alternatives | MLive

Partisan redistricting is at “the heart of so much frustration the public is feeling toward their elected leaders,” according to the Michigan League of Women Voters, which is hosting a series of town halls across the state to discuss alternatives. “Think about this for a minute. In Michigan, every 10 years, we allow politicians of whichever party is in power to draw their own districts to the advantage of their political party and their own re-election,” said League vice president Sue Smith. “This means we’re allowing politicians to pick their voters, rather than allowing voters to pick their representatives.”

Florida: Justices reject ‘discovery’ request in redistricting fight | News Service of Florida

With a Leon County circuit judge ready to hear arguments Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court has rejected a request that could have shed more light on congressional redistricting maps proposed by groups that have waged a long-running legal battle against the Legislature. The Supreme Court, in a 5-2 decision Monday, turned down a request from House attorneys to allow additional information-gathering — through a legal process known as discovery — about proposed maps submitted by the League of Women Voters of Florida, Common Cause and a group of individual plaintiffs.

Editorials: A strange reticence on redistricting | Richmond Times-Dispatch

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring is right. So is the State Board of Elections, which his office represents. And so are Virginia’s Republican congressmen, who are co-defendants in a suit against the state. All of them either have asked federal judges to post redistricting proposals that might replace the state’s current congressional map, or have signified their assent to the request. Three U.S. District judges will redraw the state’s congressional districts after the General Assembly failed to come up with its own plan by a court-imposed deadline. A number of other interested parties, including Gov. Terry McAuliffe and various good-government groups, who are not litigants in the suit have submitted their own maps.

Maryland: Redistricting panel hears gerrymandering complaints | Herald Mail

For roughly two hours Monday, 10 members of the new Maryland Redistricting Reform Commission listened to voters and elected officials alike vent about the state’s congressional and legislative district maps. Speakers told them they felt disenfranchised and distressed. They said their voices had been silenced, and their views weren’t represented. “They’re frustrated and apathetic,” former district court judge and commission co-chairman Alexander Williams Jr. concluded after the hearing. “People want something done.” Monday’s hearing, conducted at Hagerstown Community College, was the second in a series the 11-member panel is holding across the state.

Virginia: McAuliffe proposed 'comprehensive redrawing' of congressional map | Richmond Times-Dispatch

Gov. Terry McAuliffe on Friday proposed a “comprehensive redrawing” of Virginia’s congressional map in order to fix constitutional flaws with the 3rd District. Lawyers representing Republicans in Virginia’s U.S. House delegation offered narrowly drawn proposals meant to correct the violation while deferring to the legislature’s choices in redistricting. A federal panel is working to redraw Virginia’s U.S. House districts after twice ruling that Virginia lawmakers packed too many black voters into the 3rd District, diluting their influence in adjacent districts. The judges who will redraw the lines gave outside parties a Friday deadline to propose revised maps. At least eight outside parties proposed redistricting plans by the judges’ deadline Friday.

Florida: House redistricting lawyers want to grill Democrat map drawers | Tampa Bay Times

Arguing that “neither political party holds a monopoly on gerrymandering,” lawyers for the Florida House on Thursday asked the Florida Supreme Court to allow them to ask the redistricting challengers questions about the Democrat-leaning firms that drew their proposed congressional map. “Without apparent shame, Plaintiffs have presented to the trial court alternative maps that were drawn, reviewed, discussed, modified, and approved in a closed process, in complete darkness, by national political operatives,” the House lawyers wrote in the motion. “The fact that Plaintiffs’ maps, despite their origins, are pending before the trial court for a possible recommendation to this Court should dismay and disturb all Floridians.”

New York: Albany County must pay $1.7M for redistricting lawsuit | Times Union

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Albany County to pay $1.7 million in legal costs to the plaintiffs who successfully sued to strike down the county’s 2011 redistricting map that diluted minority voting power. Combined with the county’s own outside legal expenses, the federal voting rights case could cost taxpayers at least $2.2 million — a figure that does not include all the county’s legal work or the expense of redrawing the flawed maps. County Executive Dan McCoy moved swiftly to lay the fault at the feet of the County Legislature, led by fellow Democrats, which in January overwhelmingly rejected a settlement his office negotiated midtrial that would have capped the legal fees at $750,000. But legislative leaders just as quickly pointed the finger back at him for threatening to veto an earlier settlement for up to $850,000.

Florida: Lawmakers File Redistricting Plans With Judge | News Service of Florida

Lawmakers on Monday filed three potential maps of the state’s 27 congressional districts for a Leon County judge to consider, as the deadline for turning plans into the court approached. The state House wants Circuit Judge Terry Lewis to approve the last map that House members voted out during a special redistricting session that collapsed last month, while the Senate is floating two alternative proposals for the judge to consider. After the session collapsed, the Florida Supreme Court gave Lewis the task of coming up with a map for justices to review. The Supreme Court struck down the current congressional map in July for violating the anti-gerrymandering “Fair Districts” standards approved by voters in 2010.

Virginia: New lawsuit challenges Virginia legislative districts | Richmond Times-Dispatch

A lawsuit filed Monday in Richmond Circuit Court challenges 11 of Virginia’s legislative districts, arguing that they violate the state constitution’s requirement of compactness. The suit, backed by the nonpartisan redistricting reform group OneVirginia2021, challenges six Republican-held districts and five Democrat-held districts. The plaintiffs in the districts include members of both major parties, a tea party activist and members of nonpartisan organizations such as the League of Women Voters. The defendants are the Virginia State Board of Elections; chairman James B. Alcorn; vice chair Clara Belle Wheeler; board secretary Singleton B. McAllister; the state Department of Elections; and Edgardo Cortes, commissioner of the state Department of Elections.

Maryland: State commission attacks redistricting reform | Baltimore Sun

As the state’s redistricting reform commission held its first meeting at Towson University on Tuesday, co-chairman Alexander Williams Jr. noted that the group was sitting in Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District. Yet other parts of the Towson campus, Williams said, are in the 2nd Congressional District. That fact illustrates the challenge facing Williams and other members of the commission: How to create a process for drawing political maps to avoid tangled and confused districts that critics say are among the most gerrymandered in the nation. Republican Gov. Larry Hogan created the commission last month, saying he wants a constitutional amendment to put before voters in 2016 that could change how the state’s congressional and General Assembly districts are drawn. Tuesday’s meeting was the first of five scheduled around the state, and the commission’s proposal is due by Nov. 3.

Illinois: New political mapmaking push gains ground, concerns | Chicago Tribune

For years, good-government advocates have pushed for a new way to draw Illinois House and Senate district boundaries to curb the influence of partisan politics in deciding who controls the General Assembly, only to fall short due to legal hurdles. Now a new group funded by well-heeled backers is taking another run at the issue as it tries to learn from mistakes of the past by getting an earlier start and drafting a proposal it believes can withstand an inevitable court challenge. The Independent Map Amendment effort says it’s well on its way to getting enough signatures to put the measure on next year’s ballot, aided by voter frustration over the stalemate at the Statehouse. But like last time, the latest drive is drawing opposition from a group led by African-American businessmen who said they fear changes in the process could end up reducing minority representation and influence at the Capitol. Some of them successfully challenged a similar proposal last year, aided by a lawyer with close ties to Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, a 44-year veteran who helped write the Illinois Constitution and is opposed to changing how legislative maps are drawn.

Florida: House and Senate stick to script in congressional redistricting plans sent to court | Palm Beach Post

Because of Rosh Hashanah, proposed maps from a voters’ coalition that has successfully challenged legislative redistricting plans are not expected to be made public until Tuesday. But the House stood by the plan it approved on a 60-38 vote last month. Lawyers for the chamber also submitted to Leon County Circuit Judge Terry Lewis a staff-drawn “base” map that had been prepared in cooperation with the Senate, before that chamber made dramatic changes unacceptable to the House. The base map was turned into Lewis “for informational purposes,” a House spokesman said.

Virginia: A third redistricting lawsuit targets elections map | The Washington Post

A group of Virginia residents sued state elections officials Monday over 11 legislative districts — including some in Northern Virginia — charging that they violated the state Constitution by enforcing election maps that too easily protect incumbents. The plaintiffs argue that during the last round of redistricting, in 2011, the General Assembly drew the districts to give incumbents the best chance at holding on to their seats at the expense of geographical compactness, which the Constitution requires. If successful, the suit, which is the third recent court challenge to the state’s elections maps, could scrap the maps and send vulnerable lawmakers scrambling to compete in newly drawn districts. The House and Senate districts in question are spread all over Virginia and include parts of Prince William County, Manassas, Manassas Park, Fairfax County and Arlington County.

Florida: Judge wants proposed congressional maps by Monday | News Service of Florida

All of the parties involved in a legal fight over the shape of the state’s congressional districts have until Monday to submit maps they believe should be used in the looming 2016 elections, a Leon County judge ruled Friday. An order approved by Circuit Judge Terry Lewis lays out the timeline for the latest stage of the courtroom battle, now in its fourth year. The Legislature’s version of the congressional map was thrown out in July by the Florida Supreme Court, which said the plan violated the anti-gerrymandering “Fair Districts” standards approved by voters in 2010. The process for redrawing the map plunged into chaos when lawmakers emerged from a special session last month without a deal on what the state’s 27 U.S. House districts should look like. A hearing held Friday by Lewis followed another Supreme Court ruling last week on how to proceed.