Florida: Legal maneuvers continue in redistricting cases | News Service of Florida

As a Leon County judge finalized the dates for a hearing on a third draft of Florida’s congressional districts, a key lawmaker Monday refused to rule out the possibility of continuing the legal fight over the map, this time in federal court. Meanwhile, attorneys for the Legislature and critics of the 2012 redistricting process declined to discuss whether settlement talks were underway in a separate case dealing with a state Senate map that opponents also say was tainted by political considerations. The legal maneuvering came in the wake of a Florida Supreme Court decision July 9 that struck down eight of Florida’s 27 congressional districts and called for wide-ranging changes to some of them. One of the most dramatic shifts is likely to be switching the district of Democratic Congresswoman Corrine Brown from a north-south configuration that runs from Jacksonville to Orlando to an east-west arrangement that runs from Jacksonville to Tallahassee.

Virginia: Republicans reject McAuliffe’s request for redistricting meeting | The Washington Post

Republican leaders of Virginia General Assembly on Tuesday rebuffed an effort by Gov. Terry McAuliffe to strike a deal on the state’s congressional elections map before a court-imposed deadline. According to a June ruling, the General Assembly has until Sept. 1 to redraw congressional district boundaries, which the court said illegally pack African Americans into a single district to dilute their influence elsewhere. On Tuesday, McAuliffe (D) sent a letter to House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford) and Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment (R-James City) requesting a meeting “to forge compromise on a plan that is agreeable to the General Assembly and can be reviewed quickly by the public and our congressional colleagues.”

Virginia: GOP questioning proposed changes to voter registration | The Virginian Pilot

People registering to vote in Virginia would no longer be required to check boxes to indicate whether they are U.S. citizens or felons barred from voting if changes being considered by the Virginia Department of Elections are adopted.Voters would still have to affirm elsewhere on the application – under the threat of a felony conviction – that they are citizens and otherwise eligible. But instead of responding to separate questions about their citizenship or felony status, they would simply sign off on language that attests to their eligibility based on those and other requirements. The distinction may seem small, but it is one that hits the political hot buttons of voter fraud, illegal immigration and the restoration of felons’ voter rights.

Florida: Rewrite of congressional boundaries to go before judge in September | Palm Beach Post

Any legal challenges stemming from the Florida Legislature’s third attempt at drawing congressional district boundaries next month was set for a late September hearing Monday. Leon County Circuit Judge Terry Lewis set Sept. 24-25 for a hearing on a map lawmakers are expected to approve during a 12-day special session, set to begin Aug. 10. A trial on whether the state’s Senate boundaries also are unconstitutional is set to begin in Leon County on Sept. 25.

South Korea: Electoral map is being totally rewritten | Korea JoongAng Daily

The reform committee of the main opposition party has opened a political Pandora’s Box by recommending a wholesale reorganization of electoral districts and proportional representatives, a plan that would ultimately increase the number of seats in the National Assembly by nearly a fourth. The New Politics Alliance for Democracy’s (NPAD) reform committee, headed by Kim Sang-gon, a liberal icon in the education community, presented a plan on Sunday that would redraw the current electoral map. It is based on an earlier proposal by the National Election Commission. In October, the Constitutional Court ruled the current electoral constituency map unconstitutional, saying it resulted in unequal representation caused by population changes. The National Election Commission presented its plan in February and the National Assembly created a special committee in March to discuss the issue. The redistricting is supposed to be finalized by October.

Florida: State Senate races likely to face fallout of redistricting | Miami Herald

Like the aftershocks of an earthquake, Florida legislators are feeling the tremors of the Florida Supreme Court’s redistricting ruling on their own districts — particularly in the state Senate. Senators who thought they had comfortable re-election bids are now facing uncertainty as questions loom about whether the same factors that led the court to invalidate the congressional map will provoke judges to reject the Senate political boundaries, too. That would force the Legislature into another special session to redraw the Senate map and potentially make politically safe districts for many incumbents more competitive. Legislative leaders are privately discussing whether to proactively redraw the Senate map before it is thrown out by a court or — in their worst-case scenario — redrawn by the court.

North Carolina: No one comes to defense of Greensboro redistricting | WRAL.com

A federal court ruling halting the redrawing of Greensboro City Council districts has prompted plenty of finger-pointing in Raleigh, but the blame game is because of what happened at the defense table Thursday not the decision from the bench. No one showed up at the federal courthouse in Greensboro to defend the law creating the new districts, which was rammed through the General Assembly three weeks ago after hours of debate and plenty of political arm-twisting. “I was surprised that no one from the legislature filed anything,” Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughn said. “They put so much time and effort into it, I thought that they would file a brief or be here in some capacity.”

Ohio: State redistricting lands back on the ballot | The Akron Legal News

The Ohio electorate will have the opportunity to pass a proposed amendment to the Ohio Constitution that would create a new format for redistricting state elections following the 2020 census. The effect of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent redistricting decision on Ohio law, however, is not yet clear, according to experts in the field. Ohio’s proposed amendment, which will appear on the November ballot as Issue 1, was passed by a bipartisan Ohio legislature in December 2014 as HJR 12, led by two outgoing legislators– Democrat Vernon Sykes and Republican Matthew Huffman.

Florida: Legislators set August special session to redraw congressional map, order staff to limit contact | Tampa Bay Times

Florida legislators announced Monday they will convene a 12-day special session starting Aug. 10 to comply with a court order to revise the state’s congressional districts and will take some extraordinary measures to make sure staffers draw an initial base map without consulting anyone but lawyers. The unusual process is a response to the unprecedented situation in which legislators find themselves after the Florida Supreme Court ruled 5-2 to invalidate the state’s congressional map because it was “tainted with unconstitutional intent to favor the Republicans and incumbents.” Now, after spending $8.1 million defending their flawed map in court, the burden of proof shifts to lawmakers to prove that they are following the law.

National: How the Never-Ending Battle of Redistricting Will Impact 2016 | Governing

In both Virginia and Florida, legislators will meet in special sessions next month to deal with an issue they thought they’d settled years ago — redistricting. Congressional maps in both states have been ruled invalid by the courts. The reasons were different in each case, but each speaks to a trend that is keeping redistricting very much a live issue midway through the decade. Political lines have to be redrawn once every 10 years, following the census. But the fight over them never really stops.

Editorials: Reid Ribble’s idea for fairer redistricting | Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

U.S. Rep. Reid Ribble, a Wisconsin Republican, and his Democratic colleague in the House, Jim Cooper of Tennessee, unveiled a pair of bills back in March that got little notice but could go a long way to making the nation’s reapportionment process less partisan. Ribble and Cooper would reduce the authority of state legislatures in the redistricting process, a job that must be done every 10 years after the Census to ensure equal representation in congressional districts. One of the bills would require that states establish independent commissions to do the actual drawing of lines. The other bill would require the states to put all redistricting information online and call for public comment before new district maps are approved. We favor such changes. There is little doubt that leaving the job of drawing district lines to politicians, whether for state or federal seats, opens the door to political mischief.

North Carolina: Judge rules against Greensboro City Council redistricting law | Greensboro News & Record

A federal judge ruled for the city Thursday, granting a permanent injunction against a new state law that remakes the City Council. That means the law will not go into effect for this City Council election cycle. Its ultimate fate will be decided at a future trial to take place before the 2017 election. Judge Catherine Eagles heard arguments for nearly two hours in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina in Greensboro before making a ruling. “It appears … that the new statute deprives Greensboro voters, alone among municipal voters in the state, of the right to change the city’s municipal government by referendum … without a rational basis,” Eagles wrote in her order Thursday. “The plaintiffs would suffer irreparable harm should the 2015 election go forward under the new law.”

Virginia: Republicans Jockey for Safe Seats In Virginia Redistricting | Roll Call

Virginia Democrats say their congressional map can’t get any worse. In a state President Barack Obama carried twice, their party holds just three seats in the 11-member delegation. With a new round of redistricting coming up next month, the question now is which districts get rougher for Republicans. A federal district court has given Virginia until Sept. 1 to redraw the lines of Democratic Rep. Robert C. Scott’s 3rd District, which it has twice ruled is unconstitutionally packed with blacks. The district runs along the James River between Richmond and Hampton Roads and is currently 57 percent black, according to 2013 census data. Democrats expect to pick up at least one seat from a wider distribution of black voters, which means one of the eight Republicans may be in for a tougher re-election.

Michigan: Lawmakers call for ‘citizen-led’ redistricting commission to curb gerrymandering | MLive.com

Michigan Democrats in the state House are renewing their call for a citizen-led redistricting commission in the wake of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that affirmed a similar model in Arizona. Reps. Jon Hoadley and Jeremy Moss are reintroducing legislation that would create a bipartisan and independent committee to draw new political boundary lines each decade following the national census.

Ohio: Senators push for congressional redistricting | The Columbus Dispatch

Lawmakers who think it’s time to end Ohio’s hyper-partisan process for drawing congressional districts aren’t giving up the fight. As Ohio voters prepare to vote this fall on changing how Ohio draws its legislative districts, a bipartisan pair of senators is again pushing to also change congressional redistricting. Sens. Frank LaRose, R-Copley, and Tom Sawyer, D-Akron, introduced a resolution on Wednesday that would give a bipartisan commission the authority to draw congressional lines, instead of the current process in which the House and Senate draw the districts to benefit the majority political party.

Florida: Redistricting session set for Aug. 10 | Orlando Sentinel

House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, and Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, issued a joint proclamation Monday ordering lawmakers to return to the Capitol for a 12-day special session to redraw Congressional districts starting Aug. 10. The Florida Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that GOP consultants colluded with legislative leaders to draw congressional districts that favor Republicans, in violation of a 2010 constitutional amendment known as Fair Districts, which calls for contiguous districts that don’t “favor or disfavor” incumbents, political parties or minorities. In a joint memo, Gardiner and Crisafulli directed legislative redistricting staffers not to have any contact with members of Congress or the Legislature, members’ aides, political consultants or any communications that could be interpreted as favoring a political party. Any conversations are about favoring a political party are to be reported to them.

Editorials: In Virginia, redistricting being used as a political weapon | Daily Press

Political power, not racial bias, was the General Assembly’s driving force for drawing district boundaries for the House of Delegates in 2011. So goes the argument made earlier this month by lawyers for House Speaker William Howell, who is the subject of a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the process. The federal court hearing the case will decide if that’s true, but we cannot help but marvel at that line of defense. Even more troubling is the notion that the argument might work. After all, using redistricting to protect incumbents and preserve political power is perfectly legal so long as race isn’t the primary determining factor. Never mind what that means for citizens, who see their communities arbitrarily divided so partisan advantage remains intact.

National: The gerrymandering jig should be up | The Washington Post

The 3rd congressional districts in Maryland and Virginia are roughly 200 miles apart — depending on which part of their ungainly boundaries one takes as a starting point — and, on the surface, seem to have little in common. Virginia’s 3rd stretches from Norfolk to Richmond. Maryland’s 3rd, with contours often likened to a blood spatter, incorporates parts of Baltimore City, as well as parts of Anne Arundel (including Annapolis), Baltimore, Howard and Montgomery counties. What they share is a genesis in bald-faced gerrymandering contrived by politicians intent on manipulating electoral maps to their advantage by hand-picking their own voters. Democrats are the culprits in Maryland’s case; Republicans did the deed in Virginia. Encouragingly, there are signs that the jig may be up, or that at least it is facing more pressure than ever before.

Florida: August session planned to draw new districts | Politico

Legislative leaders Monday announced a mid-August special session to redraw the state’s congressional districts, a process that will include a handful of transparency measures, after the Florida Supreme Court ruled the last version were illegally drawn for partisan advantage. Deliberations during the August 10 through 21 special legislative session will begin from a “base map” drawn by legislative staff and legal counsel. Elected officials will not be involved in that initial process. The Senate redistricting committee will be led by Senate Majority Leader Bill Galvano of Bradenton, while state Rep. Jose Oliva of Miami will chair the House committee. He replaces state Rep. Richard Corcoran of Land O’Lakes, who led the House redistricting committee during a special session last summer that was required after the court tossed lawmaker’s first congressional map.

North Carolina: County replies in Greensboro council redistricting lawsuit | Greensboro News & Record

The Guilford County Board of Elections filed its reply brief Monday in the federal lawsuit over the Guilford County redistricting. Federal Judge Catherine Eagles set a hearing for Thursday on both the temporary restraining order and the preliminary injunction, which would prevent the new law from going into effect this election cycle. The board was the subject of the lawsuit as the arm of government that must implement the new redistricting law, passed earlier this month by the N.C. General Assembly.

Florida: Congressional redistricting edict roils Florida politics | Orlando Sentinel

A Florida Supreme Court ruling last week throwing out congressional maps means districts are less safe for incumbents and the political ground less sure for both major parties, analysts say. Sitting members of Congress don’t know how new districts will affect their re-election chances, and state lawmakers responsible for drawing the maps are unsure how to draft new ones for a third time. Democrats and Republicans will have to grapple with internal tensions brought by redistricting. “Some liken it to musical chairs with high stakes,” said Susan MacManus, a University of South Florida political-science professor. The ruling was a sharp rebuke to Republican lawmakers in control of the Legislature, but it also brings to the forefront tension between squabbling factions of the Democratic Party.

Editorials: Best chance for change: Redistricting | The Columbus Dispatch

Last week saw two developments that bring hope for a stronger democracy in Ohio: the kickoff of a bipartisan campaign for a constitutional amendment to reform how Ohio’s Statehouse districts are drawn, and a U.S. Supreme Court decision that opens up a chance to reform the drawing of districts for Congress, as well. At the moment, Ohio’s state and national political districts are the handiwork of majority Republicans, and they’re a masterpiece of gerrymandering, drawn to produce as many Republican-dominated districts as possible. Despite the fact that Ohio voters are about evenly split and have chosen the Democrat in the past two presidential elections, Republicans have won 12 of its 16 U.S. House seats and control the state legislature by a two-thirds margin. Democrats have done the same when they’ve had the opportunity to control the process.

Virginia: What might a redistricting special session mean? | Richmond Times-Dispatch

A special session to redraw Virginia’s congressional districts could give Gov. Terry McAuliffe the power to hold out for a new map that turns at least one additional seat to the Democrats. McAuliffe plans to call an Aug. 17 special session to redraw Virginia’s congressional districts by Sept. 1 to comply with an order by federal judges who say legislators packed too many blacks into the 3rd District. “The governor has a lot of leverage here,” said Robert D. Holsworth, a former professor and dean at Virginia Commonwealth University who led then-Gov. Bob McDonnell’s redistricting advisory panel in 2011. “The real issue is how much sacrifice he will exact from the Republicans.”

National: The 2020 redistricting war is (already) on | The Washington Post

There’s a hundred-million-dollar battle brewing for control of Congress, but it’s not going to be resolved for seven more years, and the battles will take place in lands far away from Washington. Both Democrats and Republicans think controlling state legislatures in 2020 is one of the most important political battles to fight, mostly for one reason: The power of the pen — the kind that draws district lines, that is. Five years out, both sides are in a fundraising battle to build war chests of $70 million to $125 million to swing state legislatures their way by 2020, when new electoral maps will get drawn across the country. The Republican State Leadership Committee announced Thursday it’s launching RedMap 2020 and aiming to invest $125 million to expand their majority in the statehouses and redraw the nation’s electoral lines.

Florida: Trial court breaks silence on redistricting schedule — orders Sept. 25 deadline | Miami Herald

A Tallahassee judge broke the latest logjam over the future of the state’s congressional maps Wednesday and ordered the Florida Legislature to finish its maps — and subsequent trial to defend it — by Sept. 25. “The Court will do its best to accommodate everyone’s schedule but clearly there is not much time to do all that is required,” wrote Second Judicial Circuit Judge George Reynolds in a scheduling order released late Wednesday. The order is the first sign of movement on the congressional redistricting maps since the Florida Supreme Court ruled on July 9 that the Legislature had violated the Fair District provisions of the constitution and drew maps with “unconstitutional intent to favor the Republican Party and incumbent lawmakers.”

Florida: Depositions show Florida GOP push for favorable Senate lines | Politico

Florida G.O.P. officials coordinated with Republican political consultants in an effort to quietly push for favorable state Senate maps, according to depositions and court documents. A lawsuit challenging the state Senate maps was filed in 2012, but it lay dormant as a separate suit over the state’s congressional maps winded its way through the courts. That lawsuit eventually reached the Florida Supreme Court, which ruled last week that eight congressional seats violated anti-gerrymandering provisions passed by voters in 2010.

Florida: Highest court must settle redistricting | The Tampa Tribune

Last week, the Florida Supreme Court ruled congressional maps drawn by the Legislature following the 2010 census resulted in political gerrymandering, and thereby were unconstitutional. The justices ordered new districts be created within 100 days. This follows a ruling a year ago by Judge Terry P. Lewis that two of Florida’s congressional districts were unconstitutional and “made a mockery” of the voter-approved Fair Districts amendment, and thus had to be redrawn. I guess they’ll get it right eventually. The court ruled that lawmakers specifically must redraw eight of the state’s congressional districts, which will end up affecting all 27 of them in some way. Locally, this includes the 13th and 14th Districts, now held by Reps. David Jolly and Kathy Castor. The reshaping will threaten incumbents and possibly entice some challengers who otherwise might not have run for office (see Crist, Charlie). In other words, we might end up with some competitive races, which is what the Fair Districts amendment was designed to produce.

North Carolina: Greensboro challenges state over forced redistricting | Yes Weekly

Six Greensboro residents joined the city itself in a lawsuit filed Monday that seeks to overturn a recent state law that would radically alter the method of city council elections. In the court filing submitted to the US District Court on Monday, attorneys from Brooks, Pierce and the Southern Coalition for Social Justice claimed the redistricting move “destroys self-government by the City of Greensboro and its citizens. If permitted to take effect, the Greensboro Act would destroy municipal government crafted and controlled by the citizens of Greensboro and replace it with a city council founded upon unconstitutional voting districts and expressly limited in its powers of self-government,” the suit states.

California: Legislative leaders shelve bill overhauling elections until next year | Los Angeles Times

California legislative leaders have put a hold on a bill by Secretary of State Alex Padilla that would overhaul California elections in response to last year’s dismal voter turnout. A bill introduced for Padilla by Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica) would allow counties, beginning in 2018, to mail all voters ballots that could be marked and then cast at any of several voting centers to be opened around the county. Ballots could be cast at the centers during a 10-day period that includes election day. They also could be dropped off in secure boxes available 24 hours per day. The measure was scheduled to be heard Wednesday by the Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee, but legislative leaders have put it on hold until January 2016, according to an email by Darren Chesin, chief consultant for the Senate Committee on Elections and Constitutional Amendments.

Florida: Can Anyone Draw Unbiased Districts in Florida? | The New York Times

Is Republican bias in Florida’s congressional districts really the fault of the legislature? Last week, the Florida Supreme Court ruled by 5-2 that eight of Florida’s 27 congressional districts were drawn with “partisan intent” favoring the Republican Party. The districts in question, drawn after the 2010 census, were used in the 2012 House elections. In those elections, the Republicans drew 51 percent of the vote yet won 63 percent of Florida’s House seats. In a perfectly unbiased electoral system, a party winning 50 percent of the statewide votes would earn 50 percent of the congressional seats. But the legislature that drew the districts might not be completely at fault.