North Carolina: Opponents cry ‘gerrymander’ as Wake County redistricting advances | News and Observer

A change to Wake County elections, driven by state legislators, drew a step closer to passage Tuesday. After more than two weeks below the radar, Senate Bill 181 reappeared before a state House committee with less than 24 hours’ notice. Republican Sen. Chad Barefoot’s bill would redraw electoral district lines and create two new super-districts, each representing half the county, for the Wake County Board of Commissioners. Instead of casting ballots in each race, as they do now, voters would be limited to two races each. The change likely would curtail the influence of Raleigh’s heavy Democratic presence in current countywide elections. The new lines would consolidate partisan voters in some districts, to a potential Republican advantage.

Editorials: The court’s signal to North Carolina | The Charlotte Observer

North Carolina lawmakers now have one more reason to revisit the state’s discriminatory legislative and congressional maps: The U.S. Supreme Court seems inclined to eventually make them do so. The Court ruled 5-4 last week that Alabama wrongly packs black voters into too few legislative districts, diluting their votes. It’s a decision that might be instructive to N.C. Republicans, who like Democrats before them have drawn legislative districts that give their party the best chance of staying in power. Republicans, however, have taken the tactic to a new level of distastefulness, and the state’s 2011 map is being challenged on similar grounds as the Alabama case. The N.C. challenge is pending before the Supreme Court. In Alabama, like North Carolina, lawmakers have insisted that their districts are lawful. In fact, Alabama’s attorneys argued to the Supreme Court that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 required those who drew the voting maps to maintain certain percentages of black voters in majority black districts. That, attorneys said, forced lawmakers to cluster minorities into fewer districts.

Virginia: Supreme Court asks Virginia panel to reexamine redistricting decision | The Washington Post

The Supreme Court Monday told a federal judicial panel in Virginia to take another look at its decision that lawmakers improperly packed minority voters into one congressional district.The court without comment sent the case back following its decision last week in a similar case from Alabama.In that case, the court ruled 5 to 4 that lower court judges should look more closely at whether lawmakers made race the predominate factor in drawing new district lines after the 2010 census.

Alabama: Redistricting case may take years to resolve | Montgomery Advertiser

The Alabama Legislature will probably get another chance to draw the state’s House and Senate maps if a lower court rules against the current one, and special elections in at least a handful of districts are at least possible. But how many elections; when they will take place and what the final map will look like will largely depend on how the legal and political processes play out, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling Wednesday that reversed a lower court decision upholding the state’s 2012 redistricting plan. At least a handful of districts will likely need new boundaries. “It creates a domino effect, because you can’t change the boundaries of one district without changing boundaries of a another district,” said Michael Li, redistricting counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, in a phone interview Thursday. “The normal pattern would be to give the Legislature the chance to fix it themselves.”

Alabama: Supreme Court hands win to opponents of Alabama redistricting plan | The Washington Post

The Supreme Court sided with black challengers Wednesday and told a lower court to reconsider whether a redistricting plan drawn by Alabama’s Republican-led legislature packed minority voters into districts in order to dilute their influence. The court voted 5 to 4 to send the plan back for further judicial review. Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote the opinion, and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy sided with the court’s liberals to make up the majority. The challenge was brought by black officeholders and Democrats who argued that the state’s Republican leadership packed minority voters into districts that allowed the election of African American officials but reduced their influence elsewhere.

Virginia: McAuliffe vetoes six redistricting bills | The Washington Post

Gov. Terry McAuliffe vetoed six Republican redistricting bills live on his monthly call-in radio show Thursday, then took the highly unusual step of signing the budget plan produced by Virginia’s GOP-led legislature without a single amendment. McAuliffe’s actions came one day before the Democrat is expected to announce vetoes on a raft of Republican legislation turning on political flashpoints such as guns, home schooling, “living wage” rules and the limits of federal power. Taken together, the moves seem intended to project twin images of McAuliffe, as both bipartisan dealmaker and stalwart defender of certain liberal causes.

Alabama: Supreme Court Rules Against Alabama in Redistricting Case | New York Times

The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with black and Democratic lawmakers in Alabama who said the State Legislature had relied too heavily on race in its 2012 state redistricting by maintaining high concentrations of black voters in some districts. The vote was 5 to 4, with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy joining the court’s four more liberal members to form a majority. Justice Stephen G. Breyer, writing for the majority, said a lower court had erred in considering the case on a statewide basis rather than district by district. He added that the lower court had placed too much emphasis on making sure that districts had equal populations and had been “too mechanical” in maintaining existing percentages of black voters.

Editorials: A Rare Victory for Black Voting Rights in the South | Ari Berman/The Nation

In 2010, Republicans gained control of the Alabama legislature for the first time in 136 years. The redistricting maps drawn by Republicans following the 2010 election preserved the thirty-five majority-minority districts in the Alabama legislature—represented overwhelmingly by black Democrats—and in some cases actually increased the number of minority voters in those districts. For example, State Senator Quinton Ross, a black Democrat elected in 2002, represented a district in Montgomery that was 72 percent African-American before the redistricting process. His district was under-populated by 16,000 people, so the Alabama legislature moved 14,806 African-Americans and thirty-six whites into his seat. The new district was now over 75 percent black and excluded white neighborhoods that were previously in Ross’s district.

Voting Blogs: Reading the tea leaves – what do recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions bode for Texas elections? | Texas Election Law Blog

Within the past week, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to grant certiori to hear an appeal of a decision upholding Wisconsin’s appalling voter i.d. law, (Frank v. Walker) and just remanded two Alabama redistricting cases (Alabama Black Legislative Caucus et al. v. Alabama et al., linked with Alabama Democratic Conference et al., v. Alabama et al.) back to the lower courts on a 5-4 decision holding that the state legislature could not justify “packing” African-American voters into fewer districts on the basis that it was compelled to do so in order to comply with Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Superficially, this seemed to be a bit of give-and-take when it came to voting rights, although the cases weren’t directly comparable on the facts or issues. So, what do these decisions mean for (1) the Texas voter i.d. case (Veasey et al. v. Perry et al.), or (2) the Texas redistricting case (Perez et al. v. Texas)?

Virginia: Supreme Court Alabama decision may affect Virginia election maps | Daily Press

A divided U.S. Supreme Court handed down a victory Wednesday for black legislative leaders in Alabama, and the decision may signal a coming win for Virginia Democrats fighting Republican-drawn election maps here. The court’s 5-4 decision sends Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama back to the federal district court there with an admonition that the case be re-argued. Plaintiffs there argued that Alabama legislators unfairly packed minority voters into districts to dilute black voting strength elsewhere. A federal judicial panel in the state disagreed, but the U.S. Supreme Court vacated that decision Wednesday. A three-judge panel in Virginia decided just the opposite in a case challenging the state’s 3rd Congressional District, which is held by U.S. Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott, D-Newport News. Federal judges here decided last year that race was the predominant factor in drawing district lines and ordered the map redrawn.

New York: Federal judge cites Albany County redistricting failure; legal fees could top $1M | Times Union

Albany County diluted minority voting power in its 2011 redistricting plan, a federal judge ruled Tuesday in a decision that temporarily freezes this year’s legislative elections until a new plan is drafted. Senior U.S. Judge Lawrence Kahn’s 81-page decision orders the county to submit an amended map of its 39 legislative districts within three weeks -— a timetable aimed at minimizing disruption to an election calendar that begins in June. The defeat marks the third straight time the county will be forced to alter its political lines amid a challenge under the federal 1965 Voting Rights Act — a landmark piece of legislation aimed at protecting the franchise of minority voters. “With rare exceptions, there is not yet an equal, fair opportunity for minority-preferred candidates to be elected on a county level absent special circumstances,” Kahn wrote, calling the county’s entire redistricting process “questionable.”

Washington: Yakima County begins plans for redistricting despite city’s ongoing legal fight | Yakima Herald Republic

The city of Yakima hasn’t thrown in the towel yet on its legal fight with the ACLU, but county elections officials said Wednesday they are moving ahead with implementation of a court-ordered redistricting plan for the city. Yakima County Auditor Charles Ross said the decision was made Wednesday after consulting with the county’s attorneys. Ross, whose office oversees municipal and county elections, said updating the information in the county’s voter registration system would take about three days and will likely begin next week. “Our position is we’re going to implement the judge’s order,” Ross said.

National: Redistricting war waged in US Supreme Court | Gannett

Despite recent gains in drawing fairer lines for state lawmakers’ districts, congressional district maps could look like Rorschach test ink blots for the foreseeable future. One of the reasons for the impasse in reforming congressional redistricting is a U.S. Supreme Court case debated Monday. In the case, Arizona lawmakers say they were cut out of the congressional line-drawing process when voters created an independent commission in 2000. The board of two Republicans, two Democrats and an independent took the pencil out of the hands of partisan politicians.

Florida: Jefferson County sued over redistricting plan | Tallahassee Democrat

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit Monday against the Jefferson County Commission, the county’s school board and supervisor of elections challenging the inclusion of state prison inmates in the drawing of election district maps. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Tallahassee by the ACLU on behalf of concerned county residents, says the redistricting plan adopted by the commission and school board in 2013 violates the constitution’s “one person, one vote” requirement and amounts to “prison-based gerrymandering.”

California: Potential redistricting reset could tighten California Democrats’ grip | Los Angeles Times

U.S. Supreme Court case that could force California to redraw its congressional districts has stirred up fears of a return to partisan gerrymandering, a divisive process that has been criticized for both cementing and crushing political careers. While the potential impact remains uncertain, both Democratic and Republican leaders agree that the ruling could solidify the Democrats’ tight grip on California’s 53-member House delegation, the largest of any state. The issue stems from a lawsuit filed by Arizona’s Republican-led Legislature arguing that the Constitution gives state legislatures the exclusive responsibility for drawing congressional district boundaries. Arizona and California voters have passed measures removing that authority from lawmakers and handing it over to independent citizen commissions.

Washington: Future of state Voting Rights Act unclear | Yakima Herald Republic

A proposed state Voting Rights Act remains alive this legislative session, but the odds of it passing the Republican-controlled Senate remain dim. On Wednesday, Senate Democrats attempted to pull Senate Bill 5668 from committee for a floor vote, but the motion was defeated along party lines, 26-23. However, this morning the Democratic-controlled House passed its own version of the Voting Rights Act by a vote of 52-46, again along party lines. It’s the third straight year that Democrats in Olympia have sought aggressively to move the bill forward. The law would allow residents to petition state courts for changes to local elections systems they believe violate the rights of protected minorities and other voters.

Wisconsin: The Supreme Court’s concerns don’t apply to State’s redistricting bill | Wisconsin State Journal

The nation’s high court sounded skeptical this week about the constitutionality of Arizona’s independent redistricting commission. Good thing Wisconsin didn’t follow Arizona’s model for encouraging fair voting district maps. Instead, Wisconsin’s bipartisan reformers have patterned their good-government redistricting bill on neighboring Iowa. “So we’re safe,” Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin, said Thursday. “If anything, it shows we were wise to do this.” The U.S. Supreme Court may strike down Arizona’s independent redistricting commission this summer if justices determine the U.S. Constitution forbids state voters from taking away the power of elected state legislatures to decide how U.S. House members are elected, the Associated Press reported Monday. But the Iowa model, which Wisconsin seeks to mirror, doesn’t do that.

Arizona: U.S. justices raise doubts about Arizona redistricting commission | Reuters

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday appeared skeptical of a voter-approved plan that stripped Arizona state lawmakers of their role in drawing congressional districts in an bid to remove partisan politics from the process. The nine-justice court’s conservative majority, including regular swing vote Justice Anthony Kennedy, asked questions during a one-hour oral argument that indicated there could be a majority willing to find that the ballot initiative violated the U.S. Constitution’s requirement that state legislatures set congressional district boundaries. The state’s Republican-controlled legislature objected to a 2000 ballot initiative endorsed by Arizona voters that set up an independent commission to determine the U.S. House of Representatives districts.

Florida: Court hears one more challenge to congressional district maps | Miami Herald

Florida’s congressional redistricting maps should be rejected because they are the product of a shadowy process infiltrated by Republican political operatives in violation of the law against partisan gerrymandering, lawyers argued before the Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday. The plaintiffs in the case, a coalition of voters and the League of Women Voters, want the court to adopt an alternative map because, they said, Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis erred when he ruled that the entire map had been infiltrated by operatives but then asked lawmaker to redraw only two of the districts. The court concluded that the political operatives “tainted the map with improper partisan intent,” said David King, lawyer for the League of Women Voters, who initially commended Lewis for his ruling. King said that constituted an “intentional violation by the Legislature” and invalidated the map.

Florida: State Supreme Court asked to redraw congressional districts | Jacksonville Business Journal

The Florida Supreme Court should order a third draft of the state’s congressional districts to fully eliminate illegal gerrymandering, attorneys for groups that have challenged the map argued Wednesday. But lawyers for the Legislature said Leon County Circuit Judge Terry Lewis acted appropriately last year when he upheld lawmakers’ second version of the map, drawn after Lewis found that political consultants managed to “taint the redistricting process and the resulting map with improper partisan intent” the first time around. The arguments Wednesday were the latest chapter of a long-running battle between voting-rights organizations like the League of Women Voters and lawmakers about whether congressional and state Senate maps violate the anti-gerrymandering Fair Districts amendments, approved by voters in 2010.

Editorials: Power to the Partisans – The Supreme Court’s conservatives think democracy is overrated. | Mark Joseph Stern/Slate

In the plangent peroration of his dissent in United States v. Windsor, Justice Antonin Scalia bemoaned the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of marriage equality. The justices had shortchanged democracy, he lamented: “We might have let the People decide.” But as it turns out, Scalia isn’t so fond of letting “the People decide” when those people decide to do something that actually strengthens democracy—like, for instance, drawing fair boundaries for congressional districts. Scalia may not see a constitutional right to marriage, but he definitely sees a constitutional right for partisan state legislatures to entrench their ruling parties’ power to the detriment of democracy. And after arguments on Monday, it seems likely that Scalia’s view will soon become the law of the land. Here are the basic facts behind Monday’s case, Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. In 2000, Arizona voters approved a ballot initiative, Proposition 106, that took congressional redistricting out of the state legislature’s hands. For decades the controlling party in the statehouse had used redistricting to put members of its own party in the House of Representatives through partisan gerrymandering. Under Proposition 106, the task of redistricting was put entirely in the hands of an independent commission. The system has worked remarkably well: Thanks to the commission’s redistricting efforts, Arizona’s House seats are consistently competitive.

Editorials: Wisconsin legislators should end gerrymandering for good | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week in a closely watched case testing Arizona’s nonpartisan redistricting commission. At issue here is how far the people may go to prevent partisans from carving up their states to maximum advantage. We hope the court recognizes the right of the people to adopt smarter, less partisan means to redraw district boundaries every 10 years. More than a dozen states now use independent commissions to draw congressional district lines — and all of them are at risk in this case. Wisconsin still relies on legislators to do the job, though it has flirted with a different model that stands a better chance of withstanding constitutional scrutiny. Senate Bill 58, which was introduced last Friday, would adopt a model pioneered by Iowa. The bill would take the task of redrawing political maps away from the partisans in the Legislature and give the job to the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau. But unlike the independent commission model, legislative approval would be required. We urge legislators to get behind this idea. The 2011 redistricting process, which was run by Republicans, cost Wisconsin taxpayers more than $2 million and left voters with no competitive House districts and very few in either the state Assembly or state Senate.

National: Justices Seem Skeptical of Independent Electoral Map Drawers | New York Times

The Supreme Court is casting a skeptical eye on voter-approved commissions that draw a state’s congressional district boundaries. The justices heard arguments Monday in an appeal from Arizona Republicans who object to the state’s independent redistricting commission that voters created to reduce political influence in the process. A decision against the commission also would threaten a similar system in neighboring California and could affect commissions in an additional 11 states. The big issue before the court is whether voters can take away the power given by the U.S. Constitution to elected state legislatures to decide how members of the U.S. House are elected.

Voting Blogs: Supreme Court Looks to Endanger Citizen Redistricting Commissions and MORE | Richard Hasen/Election Law Blog

I have now had a chance to review the transcript in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission and the news is not good. It appears that the conservative Justices may be ready to hold that citizen redistricting commissions which have no role for state legislatures in drawing congressional districts are unconstitutional. What’s worse, such a ruling would endanger other election laws passed by voter initiative trying to regulate congressional elections, such as open primaries. For those who don’t like campaign finance laws because they could protect incumbents, this is a ruling that could make incumbency protection all the worse, removing the crucial legislative bypass which is the initiative process (for congressional elections). The question in the case arises from the Constitution’s Elections Clause, giving each state “legislature” the power to set the rules for Congressional elections if Congress does not act. The key question is whether the people, acting through a state’s initiative process as lawmakers, are acting as the legislature for purpose of this clause. If not, redistricting done without the involvement of the legislature would be unconstitutional. (Before the Court agreed to take the case, it seemed settled that Legislature could include the initiative process of a state.)

Arizona: GOP eager for lawmakers to resume Arizona redistricting | Arizona Republic

The possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court will return congressional redistricting power to the Arizona ­Legislature has Democrats on edge and some Republicans giddy at the ­prospect of a new, GOP-drawn map. Under the current map, drawn by the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, Republicans hold five U.S. House seats and Democrats hold four. Three of the state’s nine congressional districts — held by Democratic Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick and Kyrsten Sinema and Republican Martha McSally — are among the most competitive in the country, while the other six are ­lopsided in favor of either Republicans or Democrats.

California: Redistricting success in jeopardy? | Politico

Just last November, California voters experienced a bracing novelty — a handful of competitive state assembly elections — after decades of blatant gerrymandering in which the legislature drew lines that lopsidedly favored the party in power or willfully protected incumbents on both sides of the aisle. One big reason for the change: a bipartisan citizens redistricting commission created by a statewide ballot initiative to govern state electoral boundaries and later expanded to cover congressional seats. No longer are districts here tailored to protect friends and family — as they infamously were 35 years ago when the late Rep. Philip Burton, a Democratic power broker, engineered a congressional district for his brother, John, that included parts of four counties and was connected in some places only by waterways and rail yards.

National: Supreme Court considers constitutionality of independent redistricting | Politico

The Supreme Court on Monday will hear arguments that it’s unconstitutional for a state to isolate its legislature from the redistricting process, citing the federal constitution’s Election Clause. And if the court sides with the plaintiffs, it could upend political districts and election laws from coast to coast before 2016. Hundreds of congressional districts might have to be redrawn before the next election — and several other election laws could be at stake — depending on how broadly the high court rules in a much anticipated case brought by the GOP-controlled Arizona Legislature against the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission. The Legislature is claiming that the Constitution — which states that “the times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof” — prohibits voters from taking the redistricting process out of the political arena.

Editorials: Argument preview: Who, exactly, is “the legislature”? | Lyle Denniston/SCOTUSblog

From time to time, at least since 1898, the people in America’s states have decided to take government into their own hands, withdrawing it from elected politicians when the voters think they have done the job badly, or not at all. “Direct democracy” has cycles of popularity, and may be in a new one now, as political polarization spreads worry that elected lawmakers think party first and public good second. The Supreme Court looks into such a reclaiming of people power next week. No act of government is more partisan these days, it seems, than the redistricting process — that is, the drawing of new election district boundaries, usually to take account of population growth or shifts as measured in each national census. When Republicans are in power, they craft districts in their favor, and the Democrats do exactly the same when they hold power. As a result, fewer districts are actually competitive at election time. The Supreme Court has been asked several times to put some limits on “partisan gerrymandering,” but has refused each time. Now, the Court confronts an alternative approach in Arizona — a state that has been making regular use of “direct democracy” since even before it was admitted to the Union in 1912. From statehood until 2000, the state legislature had the authority under the state constitution to draw congressional district boundaries, subject to the governor’s veto.

National: Supreme Court to decide who can draw maps for Congress | USA Today

Supreme Court justices often grouse about the political polarization and gridlock across the street in Congress. Now they have a chance to make it worse. The high court will hear a case Monday that could give partisan state legislatures sole authority to draw congressional districts, a task voters in several states have transferred to independent commissions. The case comes from Arizona, where Republican lawmakers want to take back the power to draw the district lines. If the court sides with them after agreeing to hear their appeal, the ruling would affect similar commissions in California and a handful of other states. Such a ruling “would consign states to the dysfunctionality of a system where politicians choose their voters rather than voters choosing their politicians,” says a brief filed by three national experts on redistricting.

Ohio: Redistricting reform for Ohio congressional maps proposed by House Democrats | Cleveland Plain Dealer

A pair of House Democrats announced Thursday a plan to change how Ohio draws its congressional districts, but a similar plan lacked support last year in the Republican-led legislature. The proposal, introduced by Reps. Kathleen Clyde of Kent and Mike Curtin of Marble Cliff, resembles one that the Republican-led General Assembly approved last year for drawing Statehouse districts. That plan goes before voters in November. … Clyde and Curtin’s plan has no Republican co-sponsors. Currently, congressional lines are drawn every 10 years by a committee of lawmakers and approved by the General Assembly. The setup allows the party in power — Republicans in 2011 — to draw lines and approve maps without minority-party input. Republicans hold 12 of Ohio’s 16 congressional seats yet only won 55 percent of the votes in recent congressional elections statewide.