Maryland: Redistricting Reform Commission holds first meeting with just 10 weeks to act | Maryland Reporter

Gov. Larry Hogan’s 11-member Redistricting Reform Commission, created on Aug. 6 by executive order, met for first time near the State House Thursday where they outlined their first steps to reform the process of drawing Maryland’s congressional and legislative district lines. In order to combat Maryland’s A+ grade in gerrymandering, an unlucky subject to be excelling at, the commission plans to hold four to five “regional summits,” or public hearings, over the next two months. The final outcome will be a report outlining voters concerns with redistricting, due to the governor and General Assembly leaders by Nov. 3, less than 10 weeks from now. The commission will have to produce a quick turnaround with a “fairly aggressive” schedule, according to the governor’s office. In addition to the report, the commission is tasked with recommending a constitutional amendment on congressional and legislative redistricting to be introduced during the Maryland General Assembly’s next legislative session.

Ohio: Supporters of Issue 1 say redistricting change to promote ‘fair elections’ | The Columbus Dispatch

In the past two elections, 100 percent of Ohio congressional races and 98 percent of legislative contests were won by the political party favored when the district lines were drawn in 2011. In 2014, Ohio Republican congressional candidates got 57 percent of all votes cast but won 75 percent of the seats. Republican candidates for the Ohio House got 57 percent of the vote and won nearly two-thirds of the seats. “Ohio elections will continue to be entirely predictable until we change how these maps are drawn,” said Carrie Davis, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, which put together the data. “We can fix this. We can fix it this year.”

Virginia: Who’ll be hurt in redistricting? Surely, some incumbent, somewhere? Surely? | Daily Press

Now that the General Assembly punted on re-doing the map of Virginia’s Congressional districts, the efforts of federal judges to fix matters looks likely to boost Democrats’ hopes for a larger share of the state’s 11 member delegation in the House of Representatives, says Kyle Kondik, of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. How, though, is the question. A panel of U.S. District Court judges has ruled that the General Assembly had packed too many minority voters into the Norfolk-to-Richmond district that sends Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Newport News, to Congress. It told the General Assembly to redo the map by Sept. 1, but that ain’t happening. Kondik thinks if the judges draw a new map, they’d mostly likely move some African American voters into the districts represented by Rep. Scott Rigell, R-Virginia Beach, or Rep Randy Forbes, R-Chesapeake. That could make both those districts more competitive.

Florida: Legislative friction sends redistricting case back to Supreme Court | Orlando Sentinel

The Florida Supreme Court ordered lawmakers to redraw the state’s congressional districts. They didn’t do it. Now, the state’s highest court will decide whether to give them more time or to let the courts draw the districts themselves. With the Republican-led House and Senate at odds over redistricting, Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis decided Tuesday to forward the unprecedented disagreement to the Florida Supreme Court. “I’m just going to ask them what they want me to do,” Lewis said. “I just don’t feel that I have any authority to do anything other than to report the situation.” In a two-week special session that ended Friday, the House and Senate couldn’t agree to new congressional districts after the court ruled in July that GOP operatives had stealthily submitted maps through proxies favoring the Republican Party, in violation of a constitutional prohibition against drawing new districts favoring political parties.

Alabama: Federal court hears arguments on Alabama legislative districts | Associated Press

A panel of skeptical federal judges Tuesday questioned a state lawyer on whether voter race was the predominant consideration when Republican lawmakers drew at least some of Alabama’s new legislative districts. The three-judge panel asked the state to explain why certain districts were drawn the way they were, with at least two judges suggesting that they saw problems with some of the lines. Voter race could be a factor in the decision-making, but couldn’t be the sole concern, judges and lawyers said. “I think there are some districts where you have a problem,” U.S. Circuit Judge Bill Pryor, a former state attorney general, said during questioning. The judges heard oral arguments after the U.S Supreme Court sent the case back for additional review. The Legislative Black Caucus and the Alabama Democratic Conference challenged the districts, saying lawmakers illegal sorted voters by race, packing black voters into designated minority districts and limiting their ability to influence elections elsewhere.

Editorials: Defending indefensible isn’t cheap | San Antonio Express-News

About this time last year, the cost for Texas to defend redistricting maps was around $3.9 million. Add at least $1 million after a federal appeals panel last week awarded that amount to attorneys challenging the maps. According to the opinion, the Texas attorney general’s office’s response to a court order was woefully inadequate. Let’s be clear. We’re talking about the previous administration under now-Gov. Greg Abbott.
Here’s what else is inadequate — the state’s approach to redistricting altogether. But this latest cost adds a different wrinkle. It doesn’t take much reading between the lines of the panel’s decision to conclude the state’s approach on these legal fees involved a degree of incompetence. Texas was appealing a court order last year that it pay legal fees to lawyers who challenged the maps.

Florida: Move to let court draw maps could reshape Florida politics — again | Tampa Bay Times

As Florida legislators dissolved their two-week redistricting session Friday without agreement on a congressional map, they acknowledged they were ready to repeat something they had done only once before in state history — turning over the complicated task of drawing maps to the courts. The year was 1992, when Bill Clinton and Ross Perot dominated national politics, Florida voters imposed term limits on politicians and Hurricane Andrew devastated Miami-Dade County. Then, as now, one party controlled government. Lawton Chiles was governor and the House and Senate were run by Democrats. And yet then, as now, political dominance was not enough to overcome the pressures of personal ambition and intra-party divides. The 1992 redistricting session ended in stalemate over a congressional map, and legislators turned the job over to a three-judge panel of federal judges. The court’s signature change was the creation of a sprawling, wishbone-shaped minority-majority seat that linked black communities in 14 counties from Jacksonville to Orlando and back through Gainesville.

Virginia: Redistricting Battle Continues in General Assembly | WVTF

The General Assembly’s impasse over whether or not the Special Session on Redistricting is legally over shows no signs of abating. The Senate adjourned last week thanks to a ruling by Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam and the votes of the chamber’s Democrats and one Republican—but the House of Delegates has still not adjourned. The bone of contention is how to interpret Article 4, section 6 of the Virginia Constitution. The provision says: “Neither house shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn to another place, nor for more than three days.” GOP Senator Bill Stanley says the vote to adjourn defied both that and a federal court.

Editorials: Want to fix a broken U.S. election system? Copy Canada | Tony Keller/The Globe and Mail

In the 2014 U.S. midterm elections, the Republican and Democratic Party candidates for one of North Carolina’s Senate seats, together with the various political action committees backing and attacking them, spent a combined total of $111-million (U.S.). That’s more than Canada’s three main political parties, including 900-plus candidates, spent in the 2011 federal election. Canada’s system of political finance isn’t perfect, and it has grown slightly worse in the past year. Thanks to the Fair Elections Act, the current election’s spending limits are more than double 2011’s. Canada’s process of figuring out who gets to vote has also become a little less perfect, again courtesy of the Fair Elections Act. But compared to the way elections are run in the United States, Canada’s system is still awfully close to nirvana. Which explains why, if you’re an American hoping to fix what’s wrong with America’s broken democratic process, you end up proposing reforms that look a lot like, well, Canada.

Alabama: Redistricting battle back in federal court | Montgomery Advertiser

Three federal judges will hear arguments Tuesday on whether the Alabama Legislature tried to reduce the voice of minority voters with a new district map? Attorneys for black legislators say yes and want to have the districts thrown out completely. “We’re hoping that the court will declare all of the majority black districts to be unconstitutional,” said James Blacksher, an attorney for the plaintiffs, in a phone interview Friday. “And then give the legislature a deadline for producing new plans. We hope in time for elections to be held under new plans in 2016.” The state says the plaintiffs have no proof that race was the predominant factor in the maps’ creation. “As the case comes back home to Montgomery, we continue to work hard to defend the constitutionality of Alabama’s legislative districts and look forward to Tuesday’s oral arguments,” Mike Lewis, a spokesman for Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange, said in a statement.

Florida: Congressional redistricting session facing extension amid acrimony | Sun Sentinel

The battle is over. Nobody won. Florida lawmakers on Friday conceded defeat on redrawing the state’s congressional district map and headed home. Unless the legislature calls another special session, or the governor orders one, it will likely fall to the courts to draw the map. The legislature had until Aug. 25 to come up with a map, which the Florida Supreme Court was scheduled to review on Sept. 25. Now, the most likely scenario is that lawyers for the House and Senate will each present their versions of a map to the court, which will either approve one or draw something different. The dispute between the two chambers centered on the Senate’s desire to shift district lines in Central Florida, a move that the House did not believe would stand up to the court’s scrutiny. Both maps largely agreed on South Florida, with districts 21 and 22 in Broward and Palm Beach counties being stacked on top of one another, rather than the current side-by-side configuration. If another special session is to occur, it would have to happen before Sept. 25.

Florida: Legislature ends special session with no agreement on new congressional districts | Miami Herald

A special legislative session to fix Florida’s flawed congressional district lines ended in chaos Friday as senators staged a walkout and the House rejected Senate requests to extend the session into a third week. Lawmakers ended the session on time but with no agreement on a new map. As a result, legislators have turned over the job of redrawing the 27 districts to a trial judge, who can choose a House or Senate map, solicit other options or create his own to comply with a Florida Supreme Court decision ordering lawmakers to fix eight districts that it said were illegally gerrymandered. “That should make everybody nervous,” said Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando.

Florida: Judge To Redraw Florida’s Congressional Maps After Legislature Fails To Reach Deal | NPR

A Florida judge will draw up new maps for the state’s 27 congressional districts. After meeting in a two-week special session, Florida’s House and Senate adjourned without agreeing on what the maps, ordered by the State Supreme Court, should look like. This was the Florida Legislature’s third attempt to draw congressional maps that comply with the state Constitution. Under an amendment adopted by voters in 2010, Florida’s Legislature must compile maps for congressional and legislative districts that don’t protect incumbents or political parties. But although Florida’s House and Senate are both controlled by Republicans, the two bodies were unable to come to an agreement. They adjourned amid acrimony between House and Senate leaders. It was an atmosphere similar to that when the regular session ended in April with an impasse over whether to expand Medicaid. Republican leaders denied that feud carried over into this special session.

Florida: House, Senate still at odds over redistricting map | Tallahassee Democrat

With their special legislative session set to end at noon Friday, House and Senate leaders were in stark disagreement over congressional redistricting Thursday night. One thing that appears certain, though, is that Tallahassee will be split between a newly configured District 5, a minority-access district running from downtown Jacksonville to Gadsden County, and a redrawn District 2 that extends from the Panama City area to near Ocala. State Rep. Alan Williams, D-Tallahassee, made one last try at keeping all of Tallahassee in one district Thursday but his amendment died in a voice vote. Williams pleaded with his colleagues to support his amendment, which would have kept the city and most of the county in the 5th District.

Florida: House rejects Florida Senate redistricting map, proposes new one | Sun Sentinel

With one day left in a special session to redraw congressional district maps, the Florida House and Senate seem as far apart as ever. The House on Thursday received the Senate’s redistricting plan but voted instead to largely keep their base map. The tweaks they made would keep the cities of Riviera Beach and Sunrise wholly within a single congressional district, unlike the original map. As with previous maps, the new map calls for districts 21 and 22 in Broward and Palm Beach counties to be stacked on top of each other rather than run side by side as they currently do. The new House map was approved 60-38, with 22 absentees.

Editorials: Redistricting drama gets three out of four stars | Richmond Times-Dispatch

When it turns political, the American arts scene sometimes descends into such heavy-handed didacticism that it can make Ayn Rand seem as frolicsome as P.G. Wodehouse. So it is a delight to report that the Virginia Political Repertory’s production of “Special Session: Redistricting” avoids this trap, and instead delivers keen observations on homo politicus. The script cleverly weaves two seemingly unrelated plot lines: congressional redistricting and judicial appointments. These might seem unlikely topics for compelling drama, but in the deft hands of the cast they become powerful vehicles for exploring the contradictions of contemporary governance and the foibles of the political class.

Texas: Federal Appeals Court Orders Texas to Pay $1M in Legal Fees in Voting Rights Case | National Law Journal

Texas must pay more than $1 million in legal fees to groups that challenged the state’s redistricting plans, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., ruled Tuesday. Texas forfeited any opposition to fees when it failed to make substantive arguments in the lower court, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said. A three-page advisory filed by the state—contending that Texas became the winner in the redistricting case after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a provision of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder—didn’t cut it, Judge Patricia Millett wrote. “Texas gets no second bite at the apple now,” Millett wrote. “What little argument Texas did advance in its ‘Advisory’ provides an insufficient basis for overturning the district court’s award of attorneys’ fees.”

Virginia: Uncertainty Reigns as Court Takes Over Virginia Redistricting | Roll Call

The same federal three-judge panel that has twice ruled that Virginia’s congressional map unconstitutionally packs blacks into the 3rd District will now be responsible for remedying the injustice it found. How will the court arrive at a new map for the 2016 elections? “We don’t know,” Loyola Law School Professor Justin Levitt told CQ Roll Call Tuesday. “I think they were really hoping the legislature would do it.” The court had given the General Assembly a Sept. 1 deadline to redraw district lines, and Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe had called a special August session to begin that process. But the state Senate failed to agree on a map Monday, when a dispute over a Supreme Court appointee derailed the session.

Florida: Prison population affecting Florida’s redistricting fight | Miami Herald

Florida’s prison population is fast becoming a point of contention in the Legislature’s attempt to redraw the state’s congressional districts. The last Census counted more than 160,000 people in Florida correctional facilities, and they cannot vote. But they can skew how districts are drawn, and ultimately who represents the state in the U.S. House of Representatives. That is exactly what U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville, is convinced is happening in North Florida. Brown said the proposed new Congressional District 5 stretching from Jacksonville to Tallahassee will see a reduction in the percentage of black residents who are of voting age — a key measure used to ensure black voters can elect who they want to represent them in Congress — from 50 percent to 45 percent under the map that passed the House on Tuesday and is expected to be before the Senate on Wednesday. But Brown, who is suing the Legislature to block the redrawing of her district, said the reduction of the black voting age population in her district could be even greater because her new district would have 17,000 prisoners in it — giving it one of the highest prison populations in the state. Her current district has just 10,000.

Florida: Senate, House members on redistricting collision course | News Service of Florida

With just four days left until the end of a special session called to redraw the state’s congressional map, the Senate Reapportionment Committee on Monday approved a plan that changes lines for districts in Southwest and Central Florida, setting up a potential collision with the House. Even as members of the House rejected an amendment to a “base map” developed by legislative staff members ahead of the session, the Senate panel approved on a voice vote new boundaries proposed by Sen. Tom Lee, a Brandon Republican and former Senate president. Lawmakers returned to Tallahassee last week following a July ruling by the Florida Supreme Court striking down eight of the state’s 27 congressional districts for violating the anti-gerrymandering “Fair Districts” standards approved by voters in 2010. It is the first of two redistricting sessions scheduled to be held this year. Another is needed to redraw Senate lines after a lawsuit dealing with those districts was settled after the Supreme Court decision on the congressional plan.

Ohio: Democratic Party slow to support redistricting proposal | The Columbus Dispatch

Consternation inside the Ohio Democratic Party over whether to endorse a November ballot issue on legislative redistricting should be nearing a conclusion. The legislature passed Issue 1 in December, and there was only one Democratic “no” vote. The proposal has been endorsed by the Ohio Republican Party, the League of Women Voters and a variety of groups that generally align with Democrats, including ProgressOhio, Common Cause Ohio and the Coalition of Democratic & Progressive Organizations of Central Ohio.

Texas: State again ordered to pay lawyers’ fees in redistricting case | Austin American-Statesman

In a scolding tone, a federal appeals court panel in Washington, D.C., ordered the state of Texas on Tuesday to pay more than $1 million in attorneys’ fees in a case challenging district boundaries drawn by the Republican-led Legislature. First under the direction of then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and now under Attorney General Ken Paxton, the state has been fighting a court order for more than a year to pay the lawyers who battled the state over the issuance of redistricting maps for the Texas House, Texas Senate and U.S. House of Representatives.

Editorials: Virginia’s redistricting chaos in black and white | Norman Leahy and Paul Goldman/The Washington Post

The best way to view the chaotic end to Virginia’s special legislative session on congressional redistricting is through the words of French novelist Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr’s famous epigram “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” We have been here before, Virginia. In 2011, Republicans and Democrats in Virginia’s General Assembly had their decennial redistricting battle. Sen. Donald McEachin (D-Henrico) pushed a plan designed to elect two African Americans out of the state’s 11 congressional districts. Did McEachin gerrymander the districts to get this result? Of course. Republicans, not surprisingly, wanted a plan creating only one African American district. Did the GOP gerrymander its plan? Of course. In the end, Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, signed a redistricting plan written by Republicans to help Republicans. Democrats called the plan unfair to them. It was.

Wisconsin: State DOJ seeks dismissal of gerrymandering lawsuit | Wisconsin State Journal

The state Department of Justice asked Tuesday that a lawsuit filed last month over the 2011 state legislative district map be dismissed because the lawsuit presents a political question that the court cannot answer. The lawsuit was filed by a group of 12 Democrats from across Wisconsin, led by retired UW-Madison Law School professor William Whitford, and asks that the map’s boundaries be thrown out as “one of the worst gerrymanders in modern American history.”

Florida: House passes redistricting map | Sun Sentinel

Amid blistering attacks on the Florida Supreme Court and the state Senate, the Florida House passed a congressional redistricting map Tuesday. The new map affects all of Florida’s 27 congressional districts to some extent, though some districts will be less recognizable than others. In South Florida, districts 21 and 22 previously ran parallel to each other vertically along the eastern side of Broward and Palm Beach counties. Now, the districts will be stacked one on top of the other, with one in Palm Beach County and one in Broward County and southeast Palm Beach County.

Florida: New Senate redistricting plan draws congressman out of district | Miami Herald

With one line on a map, state Sen. Tom Lee threw the political futures of two members of Congress into uncertainty. Though Lee insists his move was done without political intention, Lee passed an amendment to the senate’s congressional redistricting plan that would put one boundary of US Rep. Dennis Ross’s 15th Congressional district on the north side of Lake Mariam Drive in Lakeland. The problem? Ross, a Republican, lives on the south side of the very street that Lee chose as the boundary of the district. From just over the white brick fence in Ross’s front yard, he would be able to see his Congressional district, but he wouldn’t be living in it. Instead, Ross, first elected in 2010 would technically be living in U.S. Rep.Tom Rooney’s 17th Congressional District, which stretches through rural central Florida to include areas around Lake Okeechobee. If Ross wanted to vote for himself in 2016 and not face Rooney in a primary, he’d either have to move across the street or hope that Rooney, first elected in 2008, would not seek re-election or he would move to a new district again, like he did in 2012 to comply with the original redistricting maps.

Editorials: Texas lost when it thought it had won. The cost: $1 million | Lyle Denniston/SCOTUSblog

The state of Texas, one of the most energetic opponents of a key part of the federal Voting Rights Act, has turned what it was sure was a Supreme Court victory against that law into a legal defeat that will cost it more than $1 million. That was the result of a ruling by a federal appeals court on Tuesday, interpreting what it means when the Justices send a case back to a lower court for a new look. The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will translate into a sizable legal bill for Texas to cover what opponents in a major election law case spent for their attorneys’ work. The panel sharply accused the state’s lawyers of failing to obey court rules, echoing an earlier comment by a federal trial court judge that “this matter presents a case study in how not to respond to a motion for attorney fees and costs.”

Virginia: Federal judges will redraw Virginia’s congressional map | Richmond Times-Dispatch

The public never got its say on changes to Virginia congressional district boundaries and the state’s political redistricting process. But federal judges soon will. A public hearing on redistricting ended abruptly Monday when the House Privileges and Elections Committee chairman, Mark L. Cole, R-Spotsylvania, refused to take further testimony after announcing that the Senate had adjourned the special legislative session hours after it began. Cole interrupted Diana Egozcue, president of Virginia NOW and the sixth of 19 scheduled speakers, with the announcement, “We’re no longer in session, so we can no longer take your testimony.” House Republican leaders appeared shell-shocked by the Senate maneuver, which ensures the General Assembly will not meet a Sept. 1 deadline imposed by a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to fix unconstitutional defects in the redistricting plan that then-Gov. Bob McDonnell signed in January 2012. Gov. Terry McAuliffe issued a statement that explicitly kicked the issue back to the courts and declared, “The opportunity for a legislative remedy has ended.” McAuliffe said he was going to send a letter to the courts. “They need to get this redistricting done,” he said in a meeting with reporters outside the Executive Mansion.

Florida: House, Senate divided in redistricting fight | Miami Herald

Who represents Hillsborough County in Congress is at the center of what might become the latest political divide in the Florida Legislature, where acrimony is a consistent theme. The county became a flashpoint Monday after state Sen. Tom Lee, R-Brandon, successfully rewrote the Senate’s congressional redistricting plan to assure that more than 520,000 people in eastern Hillsborough will be represented by just one member of Congress, rather than be split into two or three pieces, as is currently the case. Under his plan, most people living east of Interstate 75 would be in one congressional district for the first time in decades.

Virginia: Redistricting will go to U.S. court | Richmond Times-Dispatch

The public never got its say on changes to Virginia congressional district boundaries and the state’s political redistricting process.
But federal judges soon will. A public hearing on redistricting ended abruptly Monday when the House Privileges and Elections Committee chairman, Mark L. Cole, R-Spotsylvania, refused to take further testimony after announcing that the Senate had adjourned the special legislative session hours after it began. Cole interrupted Diana Egozcue, president of Virginia NOW and the sixth of 19 scheduled speakers, with the announcement, “We’re no longer in session, so we can no longer take your testimony.”
House Republican leaders appeared shell-shocked by the Senate maneuver, which ensures the General Assembly will not meet a Sept. 1 deadline imposed by a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to fix unconstitutional defects in the redistricting plan that then-Gov. Bob McDonnell signed in January 2012.