North Carolina: Groups challenging redistricting seek delay of 2014 primary elections | News Observer

Groups unhappy with the North Carolina legislative and congressional districts drawn three years ago by the General Assembly have asked the state Supreme Court to delay this year’s primary elections. In a request for a temporary injunction filed with the state’s highest court Thursday, attorneys for Democratic voters and civil rights groups argued that it would be disruptive to proceed with the established election cycle while constitutional questions linger about the 2011 maps. The filing period for candidates seeking seats in the state General Assembly and the U.S. House is set to open Feb. 10 and close on Feb. 28. Primary elections are set for May 6. “Sufficient time may not now exist for this Court to properly resolve the significant federal and state constitutional questions presented in this appeal,” the request for relief states.

Editorials: Secretaries of State: A Key Front in the Battle to Protect Voting Rights | Steve Rosenthal/Huffington Post

Across the country we are witnessing a wholesale attack by the right wing on workers, unions, women’s health, the environment, LGBT issues, civil rights, immigration and nearly every other right, protection and civil liberty that Americans hold near and dear. In recent years, Republicans have invested in and won key state legislative victories, which has resulted in lopsided redistricting that will make the work for progressives even more difficult at the state and federal level for years to come. At the cornerstone of the GOP strategy is an assault on voting rights in state after state, the likes of which hasn’t been seen in this country in decades. The right wing understands that their views are out of step with the rapidly increasing progressive majority in America — women, people of color, union members, LGBT and young voters. And the only way they can win is by attempting to prevent this new progressive majority from voting. If we are to turn things around, finding new ways to defend fair and equal access to the ballot must be a top priority for progressives.

Texas: Attorney fee award reversed by appeals court in Texas voting rights case | Louisiana Record

Plaintiffs in a Texas redistricting battle who were initially awarded attorney’s fees by a district court were rebuffed in a ruling by the U.S. Fifth District Court of Appeals after being unable to prove they were the “prevailing party”. A dispute between seven elected officials and one citizen of Galveston, Texas, against Galveston County began when the county redrew district lines following 2010 census. The plaintiffs filed suit on grounds that the proposed electoral maps violated the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which requires certain jurisdictions with histories of voting discrimination to receive federal approval before changing voting procedures.

California: Assemblyman Roger Hernandez plans to introduce bill requiring district-based elections | Daily Bulletin

Calling it an effort to strengthen the California Voting Rights Act and address the problem that “it’s difficult for people of color to get elected,” Assemblyman Roger Hernandez says he plans to introduce legislation that would require cities with populations of 100,000 or more to hold district-based municipal elections. The bill, the Municipal Fair Representation Act, as currently written would apply only to general law cities, such as West Covina, El Monte, Fontana, Ontario, and Rancho Cucamonga. It would not apply to cities that are established under charters. “It’s important that we do our best as governmental leaders to have voting systems in place to give our diverse populations the best chance of having reflective representation,” Hernandez, D-West Covina, said in a telephone interview Friday. An aide said Hernandez plans to introduce the legislation in January.

Florida: Oops! Lawmakers destroyed redistricting records | Orlando Sentinel

n new court filings, House and Senate Republican leaders are conceding they deleted records related to the 2012 re-drawing of congressional and legislative maps. The voting-rights groups — including the League of Women Voters, Common Cause, and individual voters — challenging Florida’s re-drawn congressional maps notified a Leon County court Wednesday that they intended to place House and Senate officials under oath to find out what documents were destroyed and why. “The admission that redistricting records were destroyed should have Florida voters up in arms,” League President Deirdre Macnab said in a statement. But House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, shot back that the “accusation that the Florida House … thwarted the law and destroyed documents is completely false.” “The opponents in this lawsuit have received thousands and thousands of documents,” Weatherford said. “They should know better.”

Iowa: State keeping partisanship off the map | Boston Globe

In a locked windowless chamber across the street from the Iowa State House, three bureaucrats sequester themselves for 45 days every decade after census data is released. Their top-secret task: the “redistricting” of the state’s legislative and congressional boundaries. But here, unlike in most other states, every care is taken to ensure the process is not political. The mapmakers are not allowed to consider previous election results, voter registration, or even the addresses of incumbent members of Congress. No politician — not the governor, the House speaker, or Senate majority leader — is allowed to weigh in, or get a sneak preview. Instead of drawing lines that favor a single political party, the Iowa mapmakers abide by nonpartisan metrics that all sides agree are fair — a seemingly revolutionary concept in the high-stakes decennial rite of redistricting. Most other states blatantly allow politics to be infused into the process, leaving the impression — and sometimes the reality — that the election system is being rigged. And it has long, maybe always, been this way.

North Carolina: Coalition wants changes to district-drawing | NewsObserver.com

A coalition of groups is trying to take the politics out of the most political activity in state government: drawing legislative and congressional districts. The latest effort to end gerrymandering comes from groups representing organizations as diverse as the John Locke Foundation and the NC Policy Watch. The NC Coalition for Lobbying and Government Reform is holding community meetings across the state – the next will be Wednesday night in Apex – to drum up support for a big change that would likely lead to more legislative and congressional races. Efforts to cut ties between legislators and political mapmaking have been going on for years. But this is the first community campaign on the issue, said Jane Pinsky, the coalition’s director. Organizers hope to build enough support for nonpartisan redistricting to get a bill passed calling for a constitutional amendment on the 2016 ballot, she said.

Voting Blogs: State of Texas files final brief on effort to dismiss voter ID suits | Texas Redistricting

The State of Texas filed a reply brief today defending Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s position that the voter ID suits filed by the Justice Department and by African-American and Hispanic voters should be dismissed without need for a trial. In addition to challenging the standing of some of the individual and organizational plaintiffs, the brief reiterated the state’s contention that the claims should be dismissed because the Texas voter ID law was “no more difficult than ‘the usual burdens of voting’” and argued that the plaintiffs had failed to “produce or allege the existence of any person, of any race, who could not get a free EIC because of anything other than what may be fairly characterized as that person’s choice.”

California: Lack of Justice Department action in Los Angeles County voting rights dispute rankles Latinos | Associated Press

The Obama administration is aggressively pursuing lawsuits over minority voting rights in Texas and North Carolina, but the Justice Department has not moved on evidence that the latest round of redistricting in Los Angeles County unfairly reduces the influence of Latino voters. Nearly half the 10 million people in the nation’s largest county are Latino. But political boundaries redrawn in 2011 make it possible for Latino voters to elect just one of the five supervisors. The administration has resisted calls to sue the county, despite the county’s history of discrimination against Latino voters in earlier redistricting efforts. The inaction rankles some Latino activists who count themselves as strong backers of President Barack Obama.

Montana: A Win for Fort Peck: Judge Refuses to Dismiss Voting-Rights Suit | Indian Country

A United States magistrate judge has declined to dismiss a voting-rights lawsuit filed by Fort Peck Indian Reservation parents and the American Civil Liberties Union against the Wolf Point School Board of Trustees. The federal suit, which claims the school board’s voting districts favor non-Native voters, may be moving toward mediation, according to both plaintiffs’ attorney Laughlin McDonald, director emeritus of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, and defendants’ attorney Tony Koenig, of the Montana School Board Association. “One option that might be discussed is redistricting. Another might be eliminating some board positions from the district that is seen as over-represented,” said Koenig. Wolf Point is the largest community on the Fort Peck reservation, in northeastern Montana. Currently, each school board member from the predominantly non-Native part of town represents 143 people, while members from the predominantly Native area each represent 841 people. The non-Native area is over-represented, violating both the Voting Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, according to the plaintiffs.

Alaska: Redistricting plan passes muster | Associated Press

A state court judge accepted Alaska’s latest redistricting plan Monday, saying the newly redrawn political boundaries meet constitutional standards. Superior Court Judge Michael McConahy also found the Alaska Redistricting Board’s decisions regarding truncation of certain Senate seats due to changes in the makeup of those districts pass constitutional muster. He said the record does not support any inference that the standard adopted by the board for what constitutes a substantial change in a district was chosen to protect Sen. John Coghill, R-North Pole, a concern that had been raised among the plaintiffs. Senators generally stand for re-election every four years, but terms for some members can be truncated if a new redistricting plan results in substantially different districts for them.

Ohio: Jon Husted makes pitch for overhaul of Ohio’s redistricting process with emphasis on compact, competitive districts | cleveland.com

Secretary of State Jon Husted said Thursday that the process for drawing legislative district boundaries encourages excess partisanship and shuts out voices from those in the political minority. Husted, addressing the state’s Constitutional Modernization Commission, told the panel he thinks the process needs to be changed, and changed quickly. The goal, he said, should be to have an issue on the ballot in 2014. “I believe that redistricting reform, if done correctly, can be the most important reform to the Constitution in generations, because it has the potential to fix a broken democracy,” Husted said. Overhauling the process is something Husted has sought dating back to his days in the General Assembly, including his tenure as House speaker. Presently the Republicans, Husted’s own party, have a stronghold on key state offices and large majorities in both chambers in the Legislature. What he’s proposing could reduce that dominance.

Montana: Judge hears arguments in redistricting lawsuit | Billings Gazette

A commission’s last-minute reassignment of two state senators to new central Montana districts was a political move to allow another state senator from Conrad to run for re-election in 2014, and should be thrown out, a lawyer for citizens in one of the districts argued Friday. Matthew Monforton, a Bozeman attorney, said the state Districting and Apportionment Commission members made the decision in closed-door meetings this February, without giving citizens in the affected districts any advance notice to comment. “This is a case where governmental power was used not for the benefit of the public, but rather to serve the interest of one man: (state Sen.) Llew Jones,” Monforton told a district judge in Helena. “Montana Senate seats are not the personal property of Llew Jones or any other citizen.” But an attorney for the state said the five-member panel violated no laws when it decided Feb. 12 to change districts assigned to a pair of senators, thus freeing up a district where Jones, a Conrad Republican, could run for re-election in 2014.

Wisconsin: Voter ID law heads to trial | Washington Post

Opponents of a Wisconsin law requiring voters to show photo identifications at the polls will have their day in federal court Monday in a case likely to have an impact on other states that have amended their voting laws in recent years. Civil-rights groups sued over the Wisconsin law, initially passed in 2011, after a 77-year old woman couldn’t provide the documents necessary to receive a Wisconsin driver’s license. The Advancement Project, a voting-rights group based in Washington, contends the voter ID law places an outsized burden on minorities. The case also includes a challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union, which says elderly and low-income voters are disproportionately impacted. The case is the first to come to trial after the Supreme Court struck down a section of the Voting Rights Act used to determine whether states must seek Justice Department approval before making changes to election laws.

Arizona: Redistricting Commission asks court to dismiss challenge to Congressional lines | Arizona Daily Star

Attorneys for the Independent Redistricting Commission are asking a federal court to dismiss what they contend is a power grab by state lawmakers. Legal papers filed late Friday in federal court acknowledge there was a loss of power by the Legislature in 2000 when voters approved creating the commission and gave it the power to draw the lines for congressional and legislative districts. But Mary O’Grady said that does not make the system illegal. “That was the intent,’’ she wrote. O’Grady said the leaders of the Legislature, who are trying overturn at least part of the 2000 initiative, are “concerned more with the loss of power than the will of the people who elect its members.’’ The filing comes as Ray Bladine, the commission’s executive director, said lawmakers need to allocate at least another $1.25 million for the balance of this budget year which runs through June 30. And the big cost is defending three lawsuits against the commission, including this one filed by the Legislature.

Editorials: Separate but (not quite) equal voting is an awful idea | St. Louis Post Dispatch

The latest assault on Americans’ right to vote is coming from the states of Kansas and Arizona. Republican officials in both states have decided to ignore a key party principle — fiscal prudence — to create separate registration systems for state and federal elections. The sole purpose of the two-tiered system is to prevent as many potential Democratic voters as possible from voting in state and local elections. Faced with demographic shifts that threaten their chances at national office, Republicans are desperate to maintain their hold on state legislatures. As Missourians know all too well, legislatures can do a lot of damage. They also control congressional redistricting. Pre-filing of bills for the 2014 Missouri legislative session doesn’t begin until Dec. 1. But given that two-tiered voting comes straight out of the American Legislative Exchange Council handbook, and given that GOP legislative leaders in Missouri are spoon-fed by that right-wing organization, it would be an upset if Missouri doesn’t take up the cause next year. Be advised: Not only is two-tiered voting unfair and undemocratic, it’s also would be very complicated and expensive for local election boards to implement. Thus your tax dollars could be helping to subvert democracy.

Editorials: Election reform can counter political dysfunction | Henry Bonilla/Charlie Gonzalez/The Hill

It has become painfully obvious that extreme partisanship in Washington is harming our economy, national security, and the future of our country.  The recent federal budget showdowns—and resulting risk to economic growth—are only the latest evidence.  While there is no one silver bullet, election reforms at the state level—including in Ohio—can improve on our national political dysfunction and reassure Ohioans and all Americans that our government can be restored to functionality. For example, many Americans deride the practice of drawing safe Republican and safe Democratic legislative districts that produces polarized candidates, reduces real competition and leaves voters without choices on Election Day.  Many share visceral reactions at the idea that one party in control can “stick it” to the other party when they draw district lines for the next decade.

Voting Blogs: Navigating Debates about Redistricting | The Monkey Cage

People feel passionately about redistricting.  They don’t like how it’s done, or how it’s disadvantaged their party, or both.  So when political scientists come along to say “redistricting might matter less than you think”—for the outcomes of the 2012 House elections, for party polarization, for declining electoral competitiveness—people get cranky.  For example:

 Suck on it Monkey Cage and prove me wrong with maps.

So there’s clearly room for more thinking and discussion about the effects of redistricting.  Here are 4 things I think are important to discuss or at least mention.

Editorials: Roberts: The ‘swing’ justice of election law | Joshua A. Douglas/Reuters

Tuesday’s oral argument in McCutcheon v. FEC, the latest high-profile campaign finance case, will likely generate familiar storylines about a fiercely ideological Supreme Court, where one justice drives the outcome of a close 5-4 decision. Public perception of the Supreme Court is that there are four conservatives, four liberals and Justice Anthony Kennedy in the middle — as the “swing” vote. But that’s wrong — at least where voting rights and campaign finance cases are concerned. Though Kennedy’s vote dictates some outcomes when the court is split 5-4 along ideological lines, another justice has been the driving force behind current election law jurisprudence. In this matter, it is truly Chief Justice John Roberts’s court. Since Roberts became chief justice in 2005, the court has issued 23 written opinions involving voting rights, redistricting or campaign finance. Roberts is the only justice who has been in the majority every time. In addition, he has written twice as many majority opinions in this field as any other justice — six, as compared to Kennedy’s three. Roberts has now written more than 25 percent of the election law decisions handed down since he joined the court.

Editorials: The Great Gerrymander of 2012 | Sam Wang/New York Times

Having the first modern democracy comes with bugs. Normally we would expect more seats in Congress to go to the political party that receives more votes, but the last election confounded expectations. Democrats received 1.4 million more votes for the House of Representatives, yet Republicans won control of the House by a 234 to 201 margin. This is only the second such reversal since World War II. Using statistical tools that are common in fields like my own, neuroscience, I have found strong evidence that this historic aberration arises from partisan disenfranchisement. Although gerrymandering is usually thought of as a bipartisan offense, the rather asymmetrical results may surprise you. Through artful drawing of district boundaries, it is possible to put large groups of voters on the losing side of every election. The Republican State Leadership Committee, a Washington-based political group dedicated to electing state officeholders, recently issued aprogress report on Redmap, its multiyear plan to influence redistricting. The $30 million strategy consists of two steps for tilting the playing field: take over state legislatures before the decennial Census, then redraw state and Congressional districts to lock in partisan advantages. The plan was highly successful.

Editorials: Quit Blaming Gerrymandering for the Shutdown | Nate Cohn/New Republic

You don’t have to look far to find people diagnosing gerrymandering as the source of all of our nation’s woes, including (but surely not limited to) the shutdown. From this perspective, Republicans are gerrymandered into districts so conservative that the GOP is held hostage by ultraconservative primary electorates. Even President Obama has blamed the GOP “fever” on gerrymandering. These concerns are not totally misplaced. Gerrymandering is undemocratic, and it did help consolidate the GOP’s House majority in 2012. But, as I’ve written before, the significance of gerrymandering is exaggerated. Republicans are in safe districts for an incredibly simple reason: Most of the country just isn’t competitive. Take Texas, a famously gerrymandered state. If you want to create competitive districts, you don’t have many great options. Of the state’s 254 counties, 244 were won by either Obama or Romney by at least 10 points. That’s not how it used to be: Back in 1996, 92 counties were within 10 points. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these non-competitive counties tend to be extremely Republican. A whopping 176 of Texas’ 254 counties voted for Romney by more than a 40 point margin (at least 70-30). 81 of those counties voted for Romney by at least 60 points (ie 80-20). So, even a fair map would create plenty of incredibly red, safe, ultraconservative districts.

North Carolina: Justice Department Is Challenging North Carolina’s Extreme Voter Suppression Law | The Nation

The Justice Department filed suit against key provisions of North Carolina’s worst-in-the-nation voter suppression law in federal court today. The lawsuit alleges that North Carolina’s harsh voter ID law, cutbacks to early voting, elimination of same-day registration during the early voting period and ban on counting provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The Department also argues that these voting changes were enacted with intentional discrimination and thus North Carolina should have to approve all of its voting changes with the federal government for a period of time. “By restricting access and ease of voter participation, this new law would shrink, rather than expand, access to the franchise,” Attorney General Eric Holder said at a press conference today. Days after the Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, “the state legislature took aggressive steps to curtail the voting rights of African-Americans,” said Holder. “This is an intentional attempt to break a system that was working.”

North Carolina: Justice Department to sue North Carolina over voter law | Fox News

The Justice Department will announce Monday that it is suing the state of North Carolina for alleged racial discrimination over tough new voting rules. A person briefed on the department’s plans told Fox News that the suit would claim that the North Carolina statute violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and would seek to have the state subject to federal pre-clearance before making “future voting-related changes.” The person also said the suit would be filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Nashville, Tenn. In asking for pre-clearance, the Justice Department will ask a federal judge to place the four provisions in North Carolina’s new law under federal scrutiny for an indeterminate period. The suit is the latest effort by the Obama administration to fight back against a Supreme Court decision that struck down the most powerful part of the landmark Voting Rights Act and freed southern states from strict federal oversight of their elections.

North Carolina: Justice Department Poised to File Lawsuit Over Voter ID Law | New York Times

The Justice Department is expected to sue North Carolina on Monday over its restrictive new voting law, further escalating the Obama administration’s efforts to restore a stronger federal role in protecting minority voters after the Supreme Court struck down part of the Voting Rights Act, according to a person familiar with the department’s plans. The lawsuit, which had been anticipated, will ask a federal court to block North Carolina from enforcing four disputed provisions of its voting law, including a strict photo identification requirement. The lawsuit will also seek to reimpose a requirement that North Carolina obtain “preclearance” from the federal government before making changes to its election rules. The court challenge will join similar efforts by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in Texas over that state’s redistricting plan and voter photo ID law. Those lawsuits are seeking to return Texas to federal “preclearance” oversight.

Texas: Holder says Texas is just the beginning of battle for voting rights | MSNBC

Attorney General Eric Holder announced Friday that the Justice Department will continue its efforts to protect voting rights in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision which gutted the Voting Rights Act earlier this summer. During remarks to the Congressional Black Caucus, Holder explained that the lawsuits filed to stop Texas’s discriminatory redistricting and voter ID laws are “just the beginning.” “Thanks to the hard work of our Civil Rights Division, we are continuing to refine and re-focus current enforcement efforts across the country,” he said. “And while the suits we’ve filed in Texas mark the first voting rights enforcement actions the Justice Department has taken since the Supreme Court ruling, they will not be the last.”

Florida: State Supreme Court Gets Redistricting Case | The Ledger

A coalition of voting-rights groups trying to get lawmakers to testify about the 2012 redistricting process asked a skeptical Supreme Court on Monday to rule that legislators should not be shielded from speaking in court. Those challenging new district maps under the anti-gerrymandering “Fair Districts” state constitutional amendments are appealing a 1st District Court of Appeal ruling that prevents the legislators who drew the districts from having to testify about “objective” facts about the redistricting process. The Supreme Court has no definitive timeline for ruling on the question. A lower court had initially ruled that the lawmakers should have to testify, though the trial court didn’t order lawmakers to testify about “subjective” issues, like why they made certain decisions.

Texas: Rights groups seeking millions in legal fees over redistricting battle | San Antonio Express-News

Attorney General Greg Abbott’s defense of a now-defunct 2011 redistricting plan could leave the state on the hook for a roughly $6 million legal tab to pay civil rights groups that sued to block the maps. That’s the ballpark total for reimbursement requests from plaintiffs waging a years-long legal war with Abbott over redistricting maps passed by the Republican-led Legislature in 2011. Federal judges have deemed those maps discriminatory to minority voters, and they were never used. A three-judge panel in San Antonio drew interim maps for the 2012 election for the Texas House and Senate and the U.S. Congress. Led by Abbott and Gov. Rick Perry, state Republicans decided months ago to abandon the 2011 maps and replace them permanently with the political boundaries drawn by the judges. The Legislature approved the plans during a special session this summer.

Texas: Legislative Redistricting Proceeds Under a Cloud: 2014 primaries will use 2013 maps | Austin Chronicle

In what looks increasingly like a split legal decision, a federal court in San Antonio has ruled that the 2014 party primaries will use the maps adopted by the Texas legislature during the 2013 session. However, the court’s ruling also ensures that the lawsuits against those same maps will continue. In a Sept. 6 ruling, U.S. District Circuit Judges Jerry Smith, Orlando Garcia, and Xavier Rodriguez cited prior case precedent that they must defer to the Legislature on maps until there has been a ruling of racially motivated gerrymandering. Simultaneously, however, the judges allowed the plaintiffs – who originally filed suit against the 2011 redistricting – to modify their suits to include the 2013 maps. They also denied a request from the state to dismiss any claims relating to the 2011 maps as moot, noting that “the 2013 plans are heavily derived from the 2011 plans.”

Texas: Voting Rights Dispute Enters Another Round | The Texas Tribune

Texas and the Obama administration are at odds over the Voting Rights Act, but all that’s really changed is the venue. In 2011, the Legislature drew new political maps, adjusting congressional and legislative districts to accommodate growth in the population and — since it was a Republican Legislature at the time — to try to ensure a Republican majority for the next decade. Democrats would have done the same thing, if they’d had a majority. We know that because that’s what happened in 1991. Lawmakers adopted a tough law in 2011 requiring Texans to produce state-approved photo IDs before their votes can be counted. Both the maps and the voter ID law got stuck in the federal courts. The U.S. Supreme Court unstuck things earlier this summer with a ruling that effectively removed federal oversight over Texas election laws.

Texas: Court Ruling Allows Texas To Use Current Election Maps; Civil Rights Groups Claim Victory | Fox News

A judicial ruling means Texas’ primary elections will not be delayed since the state will be able to use existing voting maps, not the controversial 2011 maps drawn by the legislature, deemed as illegal by civil rights groups. But advocates may not be able to claim victory for long, since the ruling is temporary as judges sort out a complex and possibly precedent-setting lawsuit. The three-judge panel in San Antonio gave both sides in the lawsuit over Texas’ voting maps reason to claim victory. The court will not draw its own map for the 2014 elections, as civil rights groups wanted, but it also did not throw out the lawsuit completely, as Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott requested. But the ruling is viewed largely as a win for state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, because the redistricting case at one time threatened to dismantle her senate district.