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Louisiana Enacts New Congressional Map Into Law, Eliminating One Majority-Black District

By EditorMay 29, 20260 Comments

Louisiana legislators gave their final approval Friday to Senate Bill 121, a congressional redistricting map that eliminates one of the state's two majority-Black districts and gives Republicans a probable additional U.S. House seat ahead of the November midterms. The state Senate approved the final version 28-10 on party lines after the House had passed it 66-36 the day prior. The new map redraws Democratic Rep. Cleo Fields' 6th District, clustering it around predominantly white communities in the Baton Rouge area and southern Louisiana, while adding part of Baton Rouge to the majority-Black 2nd District based in New Orleans, currently represented…

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Virginia’s Redistricting Ordeal: A Brief Summary

By EditorMay 26, 20260 Comments

Virginia's Post-2020 Redistricting: From Commission to Courtroom When Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment in November 2020 establishing a bipartisan redistricting commission, it was widely seen as a model reform, a deliberate step away from partisan map-drawing toward a process governed by eight lawmakers and eight citizens working together. That promise quickly ran into reality: the commission deadlocked along partisan lines and missed its November 2021 deadline without producing a congressional map. The Virginia Supreme Court stepped in, appointed two special masters, one drawn from each party's nominees, and approved the resulting congressional map on December 28, 2021. That court-drawn…

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Utah’s Court-Ordered Redistricting: Where Things Stand

By EditorMay 22, 20260 Comments

The Utah congressional map controversy continues into 2026. On November 10, 2025, a state trial court invalidated the Utah legislature's congressional map on the grounds that it violated the anti-partisan gerrymandering rules enacted under Proposition 4, which voters approved seven years ago. The court adopted a remedial map submitted by the plaintiffs in the case (The Utah League of Women Voters and the Mormon Women for Ethical Government) to be used in the 2026 mid-term election. That map created three Republican-leaning districts and one Democratic-leaning district centered on Salt Lake County. In response, the Utah Legislature launched an aggressive multi-front…

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South Carolina Governor Calls Special Session on Redistricting After Senate Blocks Extension

By EditorMay 14, 20260 Comments

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster called a special session Thursday evening for state lawmakers to tackle redistricting ahead of the midterm elections, announcing on X: "I have issued an Executive Order calling the General Assembly back for an extra legislative session to address the state budget and congressional districts." The session is set to begin on Friday morning. McMaster initially chose not to set a special session but changed course after the Republican-led state Senate rejected a measure to extend its current session to take up a redrawn map, despite pressure from President Donald Trump, who posted on Truth Social,…

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Georgia Governor Calls for June Special Session for Mid-Decade Redistricting

By EditorMay 14, 20260 Comments

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has called the General Assembly into a special session beginning June 17 to consider new congressional, state Senate, and state House district maps for the 2028 election cycle, according to the governor’s May 13 proclamation. The session is being called in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s April 29 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which affected how race may be considered in redistricting. The proposed maps are not expected to govern this year’s midterm elections because the proclamation specifies the 2028 cycle. Kemp noted that it was too late to change the maps before the upcoming…

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Missouri State Supreme Court Hears Oral Argument in 3 Challenges to 2025 Congressional Map

By EditorMay 12, 20260 Comments

The Missouri Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday morning in three consolidated challenges to the state's new congressional map, known as the Missouri First Map, which Gov. Mike Kehoe signed into law following a special legislative session in September 2025. The map, drawn as part of President Trump's broader mid-decade redistricting push to secure additional Republican congressional seats ahead of the 2026 midterms, splits parts of Kansas City into three districts and adds Republican-leaning areas to the district of Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, one of the state's two Democratic House members. The Republican-led legislature passed the map last fall, targeting one…

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With Election Clock Ticking, Virginia Democrats File Emergency SCOTUS Appeal

By EditorMay 11, 20260 Comments

Virginia Democrats on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to revive the voter-approved redistricting amendment struck down last week by the Supreme Court of Virginia, escalating the fight over the state's congressional map to the nation's highest court. In an emergency application filed with Chief Justice John Roberts, attorneys representing House Speaker Don Scott, Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, Senate President Pro Tempore Louise Lucas, and the commonwealth of Virginia asked the court to pause the state ruling while the appeal moves forward. Democrats are asking the court to immediately freeze the Virginia ruling and keep the new congressional maps…

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Tennessee Enacts New Congressional Map, Eliminating State’s Only Majority-Black District

By EditorMay 10, 20260 Comments

Last week's Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais dramatically altered the legal landscape for redistricting across the South, and Tennessee wasted no time responding. In a 6-3 decision, the Court struck down Louisiana's majority-Black congressional district as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, substantially narrowing the scope of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act for challenging district maps. Critically, the Court raised the evidentiary bar for plaintiffs, requiring them to prove discriminatory intent tied to present-day conditions and to offer alternative maps that also satisfy a state's legitimate redistricting goals, making it significantly harder to bring successful Voting Rights Act…

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What Just Happened? Callais Decision Triggers Mutliple Map Redraws

By EditorMay 07, 20260 Comments

The Supreme Court has struck down Louisiana’s 2024 congressional map in Louisiana v. Callais, ruling 6-3 that the state’s creation of a second majority-Black district was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The map had been drawn after lower courts found Louisiana’s 2022 plan likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because it contained only one majority-Black district in a state where Black residents make up roughly one-third of the population. But the new 2024 map prompted a separate challenge from voters who argued that Louisiana had sorted voters by race in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The Court…

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Indiana Senate Rejects Mid-Cycle Congressional Map Proposal

By EditorDec 11, 2025

The Indiana Republican-led Senate voted down a mid-decade congressional map on Thursday, December 11, 2025, which would have favored the Republican party in the 2026 elections. The map was designed to increase the number of Republican-controlled congressional seats from seven to nine by effectively eliminating Indiana’s two Democratic-held districts by splitting Indianapolis into four districts. The redistricting plan was defeated by a bipartisan majority, with 21 Republican senators joining all 10 Democrats in the chamber to vote against the measure. The vote occurred despite months of intense national pressure, including urging from President Donald Trump to engage in mid-cycle redistricting.…

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