Can New York Redraw Its Congressional Districts?: NY Elections, Census and Redistricting Update (July 21, 2025)

By EditorJul 22, 2025

This New York redistricting update is excerpted from citylandnyc.org with permission from the New York Law School. Can New York Redraw Its Congressional Districts? As the Texas Legislature begins to meet this week to take up a partisan effort to redraw the state’s congressional map, California Governor Gavin Newsom is exploring how his state could redraw its map to counter the power play in the Lone Star State. Governor Newsom believes that one must play hardball when confronted by the type of demands requested by the White House. The Texas Legislature has few restrictions on what it can do when redistricting. The…

New Yorkmid-decade redistricting, new york

Proposed Census Changes Would Shift How Non-Citizens Are Counted for Apportionment

By EditorJul 18, 2025

NPR reports that Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill are once again trying to whittle down who “counts” when House seats and Electoral College votes are allocated. Three GOP bills introduced this year would direct the 2030 census to identify non-citizens and then subtract some, or all, of them from the population totals used for apportionment. The newest measure, advanced this week by a House Appropriations subcommittee on a 9-6 party-line vote, would bar the Census Bureau from including undocumented residents. Companion bills from Sen. Bill Hagerty and Rep. Chuck Edwards go further, targeting every non-citizen, including those with green cards…

Census Lawapportionment, citizenship question, News, U.S. Census Bureau

Florida High Court Affirms 2022 Congressional Map, Eliminating Former Majority-Black District

By EditorJul 18, 2025

The Florida Supreme Court’s 5-1 decision on Thursday keeps Gov. Ron DeSantis’ congressional map intact, which splits a Jacksonville-to-Tallahassee coalition of Black voters and cements the GOP’s current 20-8 edge in the U.S. House delegation. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz called the eliminated Black district in the 2022 map a “race-based gerrymander” that violated equal-protection principles and said lawmakers had a “superior obligation” to follow federal, not state, law when race and redistricting collide. The lone dissent warned the opinion could render the amendment’s non-diminishment clause “practically ineffective.” The decision signals that Florida’s newly constituted high court…

Race in Redistrictingcaseupdates, Florida

New Wisconsin Lawsuit Against Congressional Map Features “Anti-Competitive” Claims

By EditorJul 14, 2025

A bipartisan coalition of business leaders operating as the "Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy" filed a lawsuit in the Dane County Circuit Court last Thursday that brands the state’s eight-seat congressional map a “textbook example of an anti-competitive gerrymander.” Represented by Law Forward, Stafford Rosenbaum, and Harvard’s Election Law Clinic, the plaintiffs argue the current lines, drawn in 2022 under a conservative “least-changes” directive and adopted by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, suppress electoral competition in violation of several Wisconsin constitutional guarantees. The case arrives only weeks after the Wisconsin Supreme Court (now under a liberal majority) refused to hear two…

State Laws, WisconsinCASEDOCS, Wisconsin

Mississippi Redistricting Litigation Update: State Officials File Appeal in Legislative Map Case

By EditorJul 13, 2025

Both the State defendants and the Mississippi Republican Executive Committee filed direct appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court on July 3, 2025, after a federal district court invalidated the State's House and Senate maps on Voting Rights Act grounds. The case is Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP v. State Board of Election Commissioners. The NAACP suit against Mississippi’s 2022 state legislative maps began with a complaint in December 2022 alleging racial gerrymandering and Voting Rights Act violations. A three-judge federal panel denied the State’s motion to dismiss in April 2023, oversaw discovery through that autumn, and held a bench…

Mississippi, Voting Rights Actcaseupdates, lawindepth, Mississippi

NAACP Withdraws Voting Rights Lawsuit as Fayette County, TN Adopts New District Map

By EditorJul 11, 2025

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) has voluntarily dismissed its voting discrimination lawsuit against Fayette County, Tennessee, following the county commission's unanimous approval of a revised redistricting plan. The lawsuit, filed in February 2025, accused the county of intentionally diluting the voting power of Black residents through its 2021 district map, which included no majority-Black districts despite the county's population being over 25% Black. Faced with lawsuits from both the LDF and the U.S. Department of Justice, Fayette County officials swiftly responded by drafting a new districting plan. This revised map, approved unanimously by commissioners in June 2025, establishes three…

Local Redistricting, Tennessee, Voting Rights Actcaseupdates, local-news, NAACP, Tennessee

Eighth Circuit Leaves North Dakota Tribes and Section 2 enforcement, waiting on the Supreme Court

By EditorJul 08, 2025

This week, a divided Eighth Circuit has refused to rehear Spirit Lake Tribe v. Howe, leaving intact its May 2025 ruling that bars private plaintiffs from suing under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). The order preserves a decision that eliminated a key enforcement pathway for the seven states within the circuit and sets the stage for potential U.S. Supreme Court involvement. The case began when the Spirit Lake Tribe and the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians challenged North Dakota’s 2021 legislative map, arguing that splitting their reservations diluted Native voting power. A U.S. District Court Judge…

Case Updates, Voting Rights ActNews, North Dakota

Ohio’s Continuing Redistricting Saga: Here’s an Update on the Congressional Map

By EditorJul 07, 2025

Redistricting in Ohio has been a complex, multifaceted, litigious marvel of line-drawing politics. Here is a timeline and some procedural background about the ongoing struggle with Ohio's congressional redistricting, including what's next. In Ohio, congressional redistricting follows a multi-step process. Initially, the state legislature can adopt a new congressional district map with a three-fifths supermajority vote, comprising at least half of the minority party members. If the legislature fails to act, a seven-member commission takes over, composed of elected officials and legislative appointees. If the commission also fails, the legislature gets a second chance, requiring a three-fifths vote with one-third…

Ohio, Partisan GerrymanderingLatest, Ohio, ohio redistricting commission, policyindepth

Virginia Beach Court Voids Single-Member District Plan on a Technicality

By EditorJul 02, 2025

A Virginia Beach Circuit Court has struck down the city’s 10-district, “10-1” council-and-mayor voting plan, because the city passed the rule change by simple ordinance rather than securing the charter change the state constitution requires. The court's ruling leaves the 2022 and 2024 election outcomes untouched, but bars use of the district map going forward unless the General Assembly (which passed a charter-amendment bill in 2024, but was vetoed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin) or city voters cure the defect. The City Council has already scheduled a November referendum asking residents whether to keep the 10 single-member districts or revert to…

Local Redistrictinglocal-news, Virginia

Watch: NCSL 2030 Census Prep Webinar – Local Update of Census Addresses

By EditorJul 01, 2025

The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) hosted a June 2025 webinar entitled, “LUCA: Improving Census Data. Here’s How, Starting Now,” which kicks off preparations for the 2030 census by spotlighting the Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA), the Census Bureau’s first preparatory operation in the new cycle. The National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, and the International City/County Management Association co-sponsored the event. The webinar urges states, localities, and tribal nations to "begin scrubbing" the Bureau’s address list now, especially in areas with hidden or non-traditional housing, recent infill, disaster recovery, or rapid growth, so that…

Census Data and Geography, Local Redistricting, Redistricting PrepBASICS, dataindepth, local-admin, LUCA, News