Michigan State Supreme Court Hears Argument on Commission Ballot Initiative

By EditorJul 24, 2018

Last week, the Michigan State Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that pits redistricting reform advocates at odds with opponents about whether to allow a proposal for an independent redistricting commission on the ballot this election year that would amount to a sweeping reform of the redistricting process if approved by Michigan voters. (more…)

LAW, NEWS, Redistricting, Redistricting Commissions, REFORMballot initiative, MI, Michigan, oral argument, state supreme court, VIDEO

Video: A Neat Lesson on Less Obvious Gerrymanders

By EditorJul 23, 2018

People often often associate gerrymandering with "ugly," districts that have tortured boundaries, but many gerrymanders are quite pretty. This tutorial on gerrymandering by the Princeton Gerrymandering Project is one of the best visualizations of how gerrymandering can masquerade as a visually appealing map with compact districts. (more…)

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Leading Expert in Redistricting “Grofman,” Suggests a Path to Proving Partisan Gerrymandering

By EditorJul 09, 2018

Bernard Grofman, author, professor at the University of California at Irvine, and an expert witness in a multitude of redistricting cases, published this article in the Washington Post today. In it Grofman offers a way for courts to assess the level of partisan gerrymandering on a district-by-district basis when the challenge is based on the 14th amendment. His assessment is timely, given the Supreme Court's recent decision in Gill v. Whitford, which rejected challenges to a map as a whole. See our discussion of that here. Grofman points to the court's line of racial gerrymandering cases as a guide and…

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Supreme Court Rules on Texas Redistricting

By EditorJul 09, 2018

Texas - Abbott v. Perez This is the most protracted post-census 2010 litigation to date. The original case challenged the Texas legislatures’ 2011 redistricting maps, but the litigation now centers around a new set of congressional and state legislative maps that Texas adopted in 2013. These “new” maps are actually closely based on the maps that the federal district court overseeing the litigation drew as interim maps under the Supreme Court’s guidance after it determined the initial interim maps went beyond the limited purpose of correcting legal deficiencies in the 2011 maps. . The issue before the Supreme Court this…

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Supreme Court Keeps Partisan Gerrymandering Challenge Alive in Wisconsin

By EditorJul 09, 2018

Wisconsin - Whitford v. Gill This case had been the one to watch because it offered the court an opportunity to expound on when partisan gerrymandering becomes egregious enough to violate the 14th amendment. In this case for the first time in history, a federal district court invalidated a statewide map as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. However, last week the Supreme Court, unceremoniously punted the case back by remanding it for the plaintiffs to properly show they have standing. The only thing the court did confirm in Whitford was that it would not consider 14th amendment based partisan gerrymandering challenges to…

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Supreme Court Decides Procedural Issue in Maryland Partisan Gerrymandering Case

By EditorJul 09, 2018

Maryland (Benisek v. Lamone): This case was a procedural matter brought before the Supreme Court on the question of whether a federal district court should have denied a preliminary injunction against Maryland’s 2011 congressional map. The Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s decision denying the plaintiff’s request to enjoin the use of the map for the upcoming 2018 midterm elections, noting that ruling was not an abuse of discretion. . This ruling returns the challenge back to the district court to proceed with a trial on the merits of this 1st amendment based challenge to Maryland’s sixth congressional district, a…

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Supreme Court Mostly Befuddled in Oral Argument Over Maryland Partisan Gerrymandering Case

By EditorMar 29, 2018

Washington D.C. - This Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in one of the three partisan gerrymandering cases before the court this term (Benesik v. Lamone). The transcript is available here. In this novel first amendment challenge to Maryland's sixth congressional district, the court appears to remain befuddled at how to apply neutral standards when measuring just how much political gerrymandering is too much, although almost all of the justices seem to agree that Maryland's sixth district is "too much." (more…)

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ABC News Takes a Deeper Look at Pennsylvania’s New Congressional Map

By EditorMar 12, 2018

Pennsylvania - The state's new congressional map drawn by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court may look more esthetically pleasing to most, but it has serious political implications. Watch ABC News sum up what the new map does to the partisan balance in Pennsylvania.

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State Supreme Court Redraws Pennsylvania Congressional Map

By EditorFeb 22, 2018

Pennsylvania - This January, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled the state's congressional map was an unconstitutional gerrymander. The plaintiffs had alleged the map is an eggregious partisan gerrymander executed by Republican state lawmakers that allowed Republicans to win 72% of the state's congressional delegation with just 50% of the vote. Here is the new map that court quickly adopted after the PA. state legislature failed to meet its deadline to agree and enact a replacement map. Read more at NBCnews, Washington Post, and New York Times.

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Redistricting Weekly Update : Atlases and Mathematicians in the Fray

By EditorJan 29, 2018

The FiveThirtyEight Blog Releases the Atlas of Redistricting, The Maps are Impressive but Unusable FiveThirtyEight takes a comprehensive look at the mapping possibilities for every congressional district in the nation. None of the maps would pass legal muster though. At best, the Atlas of Redistricting is a rough thought experiment that can give us a good idea of what different redistricting priorities produce on a map - - just in very very broad brushstrokes. read more. Pennsylvania Republicans appeal congressional map partisan gerrymander decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a long-shot bid, Republicans appeal the state supreme court's decision…

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