National: At least 18 states are looking into changes in the way they draw congressional and legislative districts | Associated Press

Responding to complaints about partisan gerrymandering, a significant number of states this year are considering changing the criteria used to draw congressional and state legislative districts or shifting the task from elected officials to citizen commissions. The proposals, being advanced both as ballot initiatives and legislation, are part of a larger battle between the political parties to best position themselves for the aftermath of the 2020 Census, when more than 400 U.S. House districts and nearly 7,400 state legislative districts will be redrawn. Since the start of this year, more than 60 bills dealing with redistricting criteria and methods have been introduced in at least 18 state legislatures, already equaling the total number of states that considered bills last year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

National: Trump Endorses G.O.P. Fight to Keep Gerrymandered Congressional Map | The New York Times

President Trump added his voice on Saturday to the continued conservative outcry over the court-ordered redistricting of the Pennsylvania congressional map, calling the decision “very unfair to Republicans and to our country.” “Democrat judges have totally redrawn election lines in the great State of Pennsylvania,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. “This is very unfair to Republicans and to our country as a whole. Must be appealed to the United States Supreme Court ASAP!” The Supreme Court this month denied a request from Pennsylvania Republicans to stop the state’s highest court from requiring lawmakers to redraw the map of the state’s 18 House districts. The new map, released by the state court this past week, effectively eliminates the Republican advantage in Pennsylvania, endangering several incumbent Republican seats and bolstering Democrat standings in two open races.

National: Critics target partisan gerrymandering with state reforms | Associated Press

Responding to complaints about partisan gerrymandering, a significant number of states this year are considering changing the criteria used to draw congressional and state legislative districts or shifting the task from elected officials to citizen commissions. The proposals, being advanced both as ballot initiatives and legislation, are part of a larger battle between the political parties to best position themselves for the aftermath of the 2020 Census, when over 400 U.S. House districts and nearly 7,400 state legislative districts will be redrawn. Since the start of this year, more than 60 bills dealing with redistricting criteria and methods have been introduced in at least 18 state legislatures, already equaling the total number of states that considered bills last year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Editorials: Who Needs Congressional Districts? | Michael Tomasky/The New York Times

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court handed down its new set of congressional district lines on Monday, replacing those drawn by Republicans after they captured the state legislature in 2010. The state’s highest court had earlier ruled those lines unconstitutional. The new map, The Times’s Nate Cohn said, “comes very close to achieving partisan balance.” Republicans, who held a big advantage under the old lines, plan to challenge the new ones in federal court. It’s a huge fight, with enormous ramifications. But as they argue over what lines should go where, I ask you to consider a more fundamental question: Why have lines at all?

Pennsylvania: GOP asks the U.S. Supreme Court to block Pennsylvania redistricting | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Republicans have intensified their fight over Pennsylvania’s new congressional map, appealing to the nation’s highest court on Wednesday and reviving talk of impeaching the state Democratic Supreme Court justices who threw out the old map. Top GOP lawmakers submitted an emergency request to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, asking the justices to block implementation of the new district boundaries. Meanwhile, national and state Republicans were preparing a separate federal challenge to the map. House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Bradford Woods, and Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, submitted their application for a stay Wednesday evening.

North Carolina: Another redistricting lawsuit filed in North Carolina — this one over Wake election districts | News & Observer

Organizations that have challenged North Carolina redistricting plans are going back to state court over the General Assembly’s redrawing last year of election districts — this time with a new lawsuit challenging four state House districts in Wake County. The challengers are arguing that lawmakers violated the state constitution when they redrew Wake County election districts mid-decade when federal judges had not ordered them to do so to correct other districts ruled to be racial gerrymanders.

Pennsylvania: New congressional district map could be challenged by Common Cause, NAACP on civil rights grounds | Philadelphia Inquirer

Common Cause helped bring down Pennsylvania’s old congressional district map. Now, in a twist, the good-government group might undo the new map that replaced it. Micah Sims, executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania, said his organization and the state NAACP are considering filing suit in federal court to challenge the new map imposed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court this week. He said it may violate the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which banned obstacles to voting by minorities. Under Pennsylvania’s former 2011 map, drawn by Republicans, nonwhites make up a majority of residents in two Philadelphia-based congressional districts. In the new map, people of color appear to be the majority in only one district, he said. “In general, I think the new map is a really big win for democracy in Pennsylvania,” Sims said. “However, we want to make sure that it is not disenfranchising voters, particularly in Philadelphia.”

Pennsylvania: Republican challenge to Pennsylvania map likely to fail | Politico

President Donald Trump wants Pennsylvania Republicans to fight the implementation of a court-drawn congressional map that threatens a half-dozen GOP-held seats this November, but most operatives and experts see little hope in a legal challenge to the new districts. Republicans in Harrisburg and Washington say they’re moving ahead with legal action to stop the new map. But, behind the scenes, Republican consultants are already urging their clients to get ready for these new districts in 2018. “I’m advising my clients to prepare for the worst-case scenario: that these are the maps this year,” said Mark Harris, a Republican consultant based in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania: The Math Behind Pennsylvania’s Gerrymandered Map Getting Overturned | WIRED

The morning John Kennedy was set to testify last December, he woke up at 1:30 am, in an unfamiliar hotel room in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, adrenaline coursing through his veins. He’d never gone to court before for anything serious, much less taken the stand. Some time after sunrise, he headed to the courthouse, dressed in a gray Brooks Brothers suit, and spent the next several hours reviewing his notes and frantically pacing the halls. “I think I made a groove in the floor,” Kennedy says. By 3:30 pm, it was finally time. Kennedy’s answers started off slowly, as he worked to steady his nerves. Then, about an hour into his testimony, Exhibit 81 flashed on a screen inside the courtroom. It was a map of part of Pennsylvania’s seventh congressional district, but it might as well have been a chalk outline of a body. “It was like a crime scene,” explains Daniel Jacobson, an attorney for Arnold & Porter, which represented the League of Women Voters in its bid to overturn Pennsylvania’s 2011 electoral map, drawn by the state’s majority Republican General Assembly. The edges of the district skitter in all manner of unnatural directions, drawing comparisons to a sketch of Goofy kicking Donald Duck.

North Carolina: Confusion over election districts could have consequences | Fayetteville Observer

Fayetteville resident Fred Cutter knows his representative in the state House for years has been Marvin Lucas. This year? He’s not so sure. Not that Cutter would vote for the Spring Lake Democrat — “I’m about as blood-red Republican as you can get,” Cutter said. But confusion over North Carolina’s scrambling of district boundaries since 2016 could be a major theme of this year’s crucial midterm elections. Even as candidates began filing to run last week, neither congressional nor state legislative districts are certain, due to unsettled court battles over the role of race and politics in district boundaries. The courts may order more changes to districts, which could throw campaigns into chaos ahead of the May primaries or November election.

Pennsylvania: State Supreme Court releases new congressional map for 2018 elections | Philadelphia Inquirer

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Monday released a new congressional district map to be used for the 2018 elections for U.S. House seats.Its plan splits only 13 counties. Of those, four counties are split into three districts and nine are split into two districts. By contrast the most recent map, enacted in 2011, split 28 counties. It also includes significant changes to the state map, including dividing Philadelphia into only two congressional districts; currently three House members represent parts of the city. In another win for local Democrats, the fourth district is centered on Montgomery County. Critics of the map adopted in 2011 often pointed to Montgomery County, which was split into five districts in that plan and had no member of congress living in the county. Bucks, Chester, and Delaware counties also receive districts based largely on their areas.

Pennsylvania: The New Pennsylvania House Districts Are In | The New York Times

Perhaps no event will do more to reshape the fight for control of the House than the new congressional map just released by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. At stake was the fate of a Republican gerrymander that intended to cement a 13-5 Republican advantage in an evenly divided state. Now the Republicans will have little to no advantage at all. Democrats couldn’t have asked for much more from the new map. It’s arguably even better for them than the maps they proposed themselves. Over all, a half-dozen competitive Republican-held congressional districts move to the left, endangering several incumbent Republicans, one of whom may now be all but doomed to defeat, and improving Democratic standing in two open races. Based on recent election results, the new congressional map comes very close to achieving partisan balance.

Arizona: Republican bill could allow Legislature to draw map of voters | Arizona Republic

Republican state lawmakers are pushing a November ballot proposition that would ask voters to overhaul the panel that draws Arizona’s political boundaries — a move that could affect which party holds power at the state Capitol. The proposition would also give state legislators the authority to potentially sketch their own district boundaries, as well as those of Arizona’s members of Congress. Supporters said the proposal is intended to make the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission — a bipartisan panel that was created to take that power away from the Legislature — larger and, thereby, more bipartisan. But Democrats and voter-advocacy groups say it’s a veiled attempt to dismantle the commission and let state lawmakers pick their voters through gerrymandering.

Editorials: In the geometry of gerrymandering, the prettiest voting maps may not be the fairest | Aaron Montgomery/Cleveland Plain Dealer

After months of meetings and many rounds of discussion, Ohio legislators have finally reached an elusive compromise on the thorny subject of congressional gerrymandering. Pending approval from Ohio voters on the May ballot, Ohio’s congressional redistricting process will undergo a significant revision designed, among other things, to keep districts compact, limit splits of counties and cities, and to meaningfully involve the minority political party in the redistricting process. When I make the four-mile trip each morning from my house to my office at Baldwin Wallace University, I cross from Ohio’s 16th congressional district into the 9th district. This journey serves as a daily reminder that the redistricting process constitutes a formidable geometry problem.

Editorials: There’s another way to solve gerrymandering. It’s as simple as cake. | Wesley Pegden and Ariel D. Procaccia/The Washington Post

Once a relatively obscure phenomenon, gerrymandering is having its moment. In the past year, there have been legal challenges to election district lines in Wisconsin, Maryland, North Carolina and in our home state of Pennsylvania. Regardless of the outcome of these cases, it’s clear the methods we use to draw our political maps are broken. Where new maps are drawn by state legislatures, majority parties have few checks on their ability to shape districts as they please, creating a circular process that keeps them in power, even when winning a minority of statewide votes. One alternative is to give responsibility to independent commissions, as states such as Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana and Washington have done. But this solution hinges on having workable procedures to identify truly independent commissioners who can resist manipulation from savvy politicians.

Arizona: Legislative leaders push redistricting commission changes | Associated Press

Republican leaders in the Arizona Legislature are pushing a proposal to dramatically overhaul the independent commission that draws congressional and legislative maps every decade. Redistricting is important because it can decide which party gets the majority of congressional and state legislative seats. It is a contentious issue nationwide. Senate President Steve Yarbrough’s proposal would expand the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission from five to eight members, all appointed by the Legislature. Three would be Democrats, three Republicans and two independents.

National: Judges Say Throw Out the Map. Lawmakers Say Throw Out the Judges. | The New York Times

In Pennsylvania, a Republican lawmaker unhappy with a State Supreme Court ruling on gerrymandering wants to impeach the Democratic justices who authored it. In Iowa, a running dispute over allowing firearms in courthouses has prompted bills by Republican sponsors to slash judges’ pay and require them to personally pay rent for courtrooms that are gun-free. In North Carolina, the Republican Party is working on sweeping changes to rein in state courts that have repeatedly undercut or blocked laws passed by the legislature. Rather than simply fighting judicial rulings, elected officials in some states across the country — largely Republicans, but Democrats as well — are increasingly seeking to punish or restrain judges who hand down unfavorable decisions, accusing them of making law instead of interpreting it.

New Hampshire: Alternative voting, math oversight of redistricting shot down by House committee | Concord Monitor

Amid all the high-profile discussion of possible changes to New Hampshire election laws and processes, a trio of less-mainstream proposals were shot down Tuesday. One of them would have used mathematics to draw legislative districts, and the other two would allow people to vote for more than one candidate, showing their ballot preference by systems other than the traditional process. All three were marked as inexpedient to legislate by sweeping votes in the House Election Law Committee, which makes their demise in the full House likely. Under one bill, House Bill 1666, a calculation known as efficiency gap analysis would have been applied to statewide districts in New Hampshire after the next redistricting in 2021. If the analysis found problems, “the redistricting for that elected body shall be deemed to be gerrymandered and therefore not valid” and the districts redrawn before the next election. It was unanimously voted as ITL by the 20-person committee.

Pennsylvania: The governor of Pennsylvania rejects Republicans’ new map | The Economist

The best thing that can be said about a new Republican-drawn congressional map for Pennsylvania is that none of the districts resembles a cartoon character. But erasing the lines of a comically gerrymandered district dubbed “Goofy kicking Donald Duck” was not enough to satisfy an order from Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court, said Tom Wolf, the state’s Democratic governor, on February 13th. When the court ruled on January 22nd that the map in use since 2011 was an extreme partisan gerrymander that violates Pennsylvania’s constitution, it gave legislators until February 9th to send Mr Wolf a fairer map. The redrawn districts, the court advised, should be “composed of compact and contiguous territory” and should not gratuitously divide cities and counties. Curiously, the initial order said nothing about fixing the map’s skew toward Republican candidates, which has afforded their party a reliable 13-to-5 advantage in a state with more registered Democrats than Republicans.

West Virginia: Redistricting bill sent to House floor without independent commission | Charleston Gazette-Mail

A House of Delegates committee sent a bill to the floor Wednesday that would change the factors legislators use when drawing political district lines after each decennial census. The bill does not, however, create an independent commission to handle the redistricting process, as had been the original reason for drafting the updated House Bill 2383. Delegate Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, introduced an amendment to the bill that would have formed an independent commission. His amendment was essentially a reincarnation of a draft that a subcommittee killed last week. His amendment failed on a party-line vote.

Pennsylvania: Governor rejects proposed redistricting map from GOP lawmakers | The Hill

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) on Tuesday rejected a new district map drawn by GOP lawmakers, bringing the state closer to handing its redistricting process over to a court. The GOP map was drawn after the state Supreme Court struck down the state’s current congressional map in a gerrymandering case. Wolf’s press office confirmed that the governor told Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court that he won’t approve the new congressional lines on the grounds that it’s a “partisan gerrymander that does not comply with the court’s order” or state constitution. “Partisan gerrymandering weakens citizen power, promotes gridlock and stifles meaningful reform,” Wolf said in a statement. “As non-partisan analysts have already said, their map maintains a similar partisan advantage by employing many of the same unconstitutional tactics present in their 2011 map.”

Malaysia: Opposition objects to EC’s new vote boundaries | Malay Mail

Malaysia’s Opposition and an election watchdog submitted objections today to the redrawing of some constituency boundaries, which they said would favour Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak in a general election due by August. The Election Commission is reviewing electoral boundaries for more than half of Malaysia’s 222 parliamentary seats. Opponents of the redrafting say it is unconstitutional and could skew voting in favour of Najib’s ruling coalition, the Barisan Nasional (BN). The government denies the accusation.

North Carolina: After one more ruling, North Carolina candidates begin filing | Associated Press

Hundreds filed for congressional, legislative and county positions Monday as the North Carolina candidate period opened, but not before yet another court ruling was issued from reams of pending litigation seeking to alter more districts or filing dates. Hours before election board offices statewide began accepting candidate forms at noon, a panel of state trial judges denied a motion by Democrats and voting rights g roups seeking changes to more than a dozen state House districts in and around Raleigh and Charlotte. The decision against those who originally sued over General Assembly maps approved in 2011 and favoring Republicans means districts in those areas approved last summer by the GOP-controlled legislature are being used for primary and general elections this year.

Pennsylvania: State Supreme Court gives a blueprint to strike down partisan gerrymandering. | Slate

On Wednesday night, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court finally released its majority opinion explaining why Republicans’ gerrymander of Pennsylvania’s congressional districts violates the state constitution. (On Jan. 22, the court had issued a brief order directing the Legislature to redraw the illegal districts without fully explaining its reasoning.) Justice Debra McCloskey Todd’s 139-page opinion for the court is thorough and persuasive—and, critically, its reasoning isn’t entirely limited to Pennsylvania. Instead, Todd illustrates how dozens of other state constitutions may be interpreted to protect voting rights more robustly than the U.S. Constitution does. Her decision will arm activists in every state with a powerful new tool in the fight against political redistricting.

Pennsylvania: Republicans have drawn a new congressional map that is just as gerrymandered as the old one – The Washington Post

Last month the Pennsylvania Supreme Court instructed the state’s Republican-led legislature to draw a new congressional map after finding the existing one was an illegal partisan gerrymander that violated voters’ right to participate in “free and equal elections.” On Friday, Republican leaders in the legislature submitted their new map for the governor’s approval. As directed by the Supreme Court, the new map is much more compact than the old one. Gone are the infamous convolutions that characterized the old map, earning nicknames such as “Goofy kicking Donald Duck.” The new districts generally respect county and municipal boundaries and don’t “wander seemingly arbitrarily across Pennsylvania,” as the state’s Supreme Court wrote. Unfortunately for Pennsylvania voters, the new districts show just as much partisan bias as the old ones. #url#

Pennsylvania: GOP proposes a new congressional map. Democrats say it’s still gerrymandered | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A proposed new map of Pennsylvania congressional districts may have sanded off some of the rougher edges of the current version, but it still amounts to a pro-Republican gerrymander, a chorus of Democrats complained Saturday as they urged Gov. Tom Wolf to reject it. The governor, whose administration is combing through the proposal with the advice of a prominent mathematics professor, is expected to announce his position on the new map early this week.

Editorials: Ohio’s redistricting fight suggests how principles and politics can mesh | Thomas Suddes/Cleveland Plain Dealer

Yes, the legislature’s approval of a proposed reform of congressional “redistricting” (Substitute Senate Joint Resolution 5) was a good thing. But make no mistake: Inside the General Assembly, good government takes a back seat to self-interest. Ohioans will vote SJR 5 up or down on May 8. SJR 5 is a good if not perfect plan. Every single state senator present for last week’s Senate vote on SJR 5, Republicans and Democrats alike, voted for SJR 5. The Senate tally was 31-0. The House’s count was 83-10. As Statehouse bystanders noted, the legislature likely wouldn’t have passed SJR 5 but for the extraordinary work of the non-partisan Fair Districts = Fair Elections coalition, paced by the League of Women Voters of Ohio and Common Cause Ohio. The coalition’s been gathering signatures to place its redistricting reform plan on November’s ballot – and aims to do just that if voters don’t ratify SJR 5 in May. 

Pennsylvania: Top Republicans in House, Senate submit congressional map to Gov. Wolf | Philadelphia Inquirer

Facing a deadline imposed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the legislature’s two top Republicans late Friday submitted to the governor a new statewide map of congressional districts to replace boundaries the justices ruled were unconstitutional. If approved, the map submitted by Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati (R., Jefferson) and House Speaker Mike Turzai (R., Allegheny) would result in significant changes for the areas surrounding Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The proposed map “complies fully” with the court’s order, the pair said in a joint statement. But within roughly an hour of its public release, top Democrats in the House and the Senate were urging Democratic Gov. Wolf to “reject it outright.”

Ohio: Senate passes bipartisan congressional redistricting plan, sending it to the House | Cleveland Plain Dealer

The Ohio Senate on Monday passed a bipartisan proposal to change how Ohio draws its congressional districts, advancing the proposed constitutional amendment one step closer to appearing on the May ballot. Advocates for redistricting reform say the proposed changes will curb the legislature’s ability to gerrymander districts to favor a political party or incumbent. The Senate approved a revised Senate Joint Resolution 5 in a 31-0 vote. The House will vote on the resolution Tuesday, one day before the deadline to place a measure on the May ballot. “Hopefully this is an issue that will serve Ohioans for many decades to come,” Sen. Matt Huffman, the Lima Republican leading the effort, said.

Pennsylvania: As deadline looms, Republicans consider new strategy for congressional maps | Philadelphia Inquirer

It’s official: The state legislature will not pass a new congressional map before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s Friday deadline. But the Republican leaders who control both chambers weren’t ready Thursday to cede the redrawing of districts to the state’s highest court, which has a Democratic majority. Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati (R., Jefferson) and House Speaker Mike Turzai (R., Allegheny) were considering submitting a draft map to the governor Friday, staffers said. Then they could call lawmakers back in the coming days to vote on that map, or a different one. “We’re blazing new ground here, and we’re trying to meet as many markers as we possibly can,” said Drew Crompton, chief of staff to Scarnati and the Senate’s top lawyer. “I don’t sit here and say this is the perfect solution, but we’re trying to do the best we can.”