Watch: House Judiciary Committee Hearing on Voting Discrimination

By Michelle DavisSep 12, 2019

Date: Tuesday, September 10, 2019 - 10:00am Location: 2141 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515 The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary heard testimony regarding evidence of current and ongoing voting discrimination. Witnesses included: Mr. Derrick Johnson ,President and CEO, NAACP Ms. Vanita Gupta ,President and CEO, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights J. Christian Adams, President and General Counsel, Public Interest Legal Foundation Mr. Dale Ho, Director, Voting Rights Project, American Civil Liberties Union Ms. Myrna Perez, Director, Voting Rights and Elections Program, Brennan Center for Justice Ms. Natalie A. Landreth, Senior Staff Attorney, Native American Rights Fund https://youtu.be/VoRQ6-CD7Yc?t=1837

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Second State Invalidates Redistricting Map Based on Common State Constitutional Provision

By Michelle DavisSep 05, 2019

September 5, 2019 “the Free Elections Clause of the North Carolina Constitution guarantees that all elections must be conducted freely and honestly to ascertain, fairly and truthfully, the will of the People and that this is a fundamental right of North Carolina citizens, a compelling governmental interest, and a cornerstone of our democratic form of government.” These are the words of the three-judge panel in North Carolina's state trial court. Following Pennsylvania's lead in League of Women Voters of Pa. v. Pennsylvania, which invalidated that state's congressional map - The North Carolina court gave legislative leaders until September 17th to…

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Do Independent Redistricting Commissions Produce Neutral Maps?

By Michelle DavisJul 02, 2019

After the Supreme Court's exit from the partisan gerrymandering business last week, the focus will likely turn to the states. The call for independent redistricting commissions will be key to any reform strategy. A group of government and political science professors provided some insight into the question of whether these commissions actually work to produce nonpartisan, or "less" partisan maps. Their preliminary evidence suggests that it does. "The nonpartisan-drawn maps tended to be more symmetrical on average after redistricting. In other words, they tended to treat both parties similarly. This suggests that nonpartisan bodies have successfully neutralized partisan bias, as…

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The Supreme Court’s Less Than Graceful Exit from the Thicket

By Michelle DavisJun 27, 2019

The long-awaited partisan gerrymandering decision has come down from the nation's highest court. A 5-4 majority decided to exit the "political thicket" and leave the policing of political gerrymandered redistricting maps to the States, commissions, congress; anybody, except the nine of them. Below are brief excerpts (with explanation) from the both the majority opinion and a passionate dissent from Justice Kagan in the consolidated cases of Lamone v. Benisek, ET Al. (Maryland) and Rucho v. Common Cause, ET Al. (North Carolina). Read the entire case here. The Court: Partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal…

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Listen to Supreme Court Oral Arguments in the North Carolina Partisan Gerrymandering Case

By Michelle DavisApr 25, 2019

On March 26, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Rucho v. Common Cause, a partisan gerrymandering case from North Carolina.Click here for background on this case and its companion case, Benesik v. Lamone (Maryland). For a pre oral symposium hosted by ScotusBlog, click here. Click here to listen to oral argument in its companion case, Benesik v. Lamone.

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SCOTUSblog Symposium in Anticipation of Oral Arguments in Partisan Gerrymandering Cases

By Michelle DavisFeb 25, 2019

. The Supreme Court will hear oral argument in two key partisan gerrymandering cases on March 26; one from Maryland (Benesik v. Lamone) and one from North Carolina (Rucho v. Common Cause). In preparation for these arguments, the editors at SCOTUSblog hosted this pre-argument symposium featuring a group of experts on redistricting law. Here is a quick summary of each contributor's essay. You can click to read each article in full. . Justin Levitt: Suggests that the unconstitutionality of excessive partisan gerrymandering follows from the fact that there is widespread agreement (in the legal community) that any State law that…

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Panel Discusses Election Administration, Redistricting and Campaign Finance

By EditorFeb 06, 2019

On Thursday, January 31, a panel of professors and activists met to discuss the state of the American election system. Here is the description provided by the Hammer Forum of UCLA: . "The 2018 midterm elections revealed egregious voter suppression tactics and mismanagement of polling places but also slate of new reforms that eliminate barriers to voting for many Americans. Kathay Feng, California Common Cause executive director; Franita Tolson, USC Gould School of Law professor; Justin Levitt, Loyola Law School professor; and Michael Morley, Florida State University law professor, discuss the future of voting rights and election laws with moderator Rick Hasen, UC Irvine…

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Watch: A Mathematical Measurement of Partisan Gerrymandering

By Michelle DavisFeb 05, 2019

. Researchers at Duke University do a good job explaining their quantitative analysis of North Carolina’s congressional redistricting maps in lay terms. In this video they present fairly solid statistical proof that partisan gerrymandering indeed can be sniffed out by statistical algorithms that show when a map is the result of intentional and precise human design, and not mere adjustment of the boundaries that are already there. Of course, this only proves that partisan gerrymandering exists, and it is a helpful measure of the stark differences in the election results between a map drawn with precise political motivations versus on…

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Redistricting Reform Advocates Strategize at Gerrymandering Summit

By EditorJan 22, 2019

The USC Sol Price School of Public Policy hosted the "Terminate Gerrymandering Summit and Fair Maps Incubator " Conference earlier this month as part of an effort to take advantage of the momentum that independent redistricting commission movements have created across the country with several states passing ballot initiatives to create "California Style" commissions. . The project is the brainchild of former CA governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The institute on campus that bears his name hosted this event at which he was the keynote speaker. Schwarzenegger explains that he wants to "accelerate the fight, bringing together those who’ve won nonpartisan redistricting…

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Federal Court Rejects a Citizenship Question for the 2020 Census

By EditorJan 15, 2019

A New York federal district court has rejected the administration's bid to place a citizenship question on the upcoming 2020 census. The U.S. Department of Commerce, which is the main defendant in the lawsuit, will most likely appeal this decision but this just deepens the legal, financial and operational challenges that the Census Bureau must endure just under 15 months away from the 2020 census, the data from which, states and local governments will use to redraw electoral lines. NPR lists the possible effects that the current government shutdown and this lawsuit will have on census 2020 planning here. Read…

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