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Progress Report: Fight Gerrymandering, Give Voters Choice

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At Ballot Box and In Court, Reformers Shake System

Voters across America are fed up with politicians who rig elections by manipulating district maps. They want a level playing field with competitive districts that give them genuine choice at the ballot box. This is especially important when it comes to the Voting Rights of Americans. All citizens should have an equal say in our democracy, and gerrymandering deprives too many of that basic right. It’s time for reform so that all voices can be heard.

In the 2018 elections, majorities of voters in five states – Colorado, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, and Utah – passed referendums throwing out the old partisan system. Electorates in Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, and Utah approved citizen-initiated reforms that take the job of redistricting away from the legislatures and turn it over to independent trans-partisan commissions. In Ohio, the voter-approved reform mandates a bipartisan vote in the legislature on redistricting to prevent either major party from monopolizing the process.

In all, 15 states have adopted laws to set up independent commissions or politically neutral bodies to carry out the task of drawing election district lines tome their fair to all parties and minority voters as wells the majority. Partisan gerrymandering still operates in 35 states, but it is under fire from grassroots reform movements in 7 more states; and has been challenged by lawsuits in 8 states. In response to a lawsuit, Pennsylvania’s supreme court imposed gerrymander reform for congressional elections. starting in 2018 but that did not affect how districts are drawn for the state legislature.

But in June 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court flashed a red light against court-ordered reform and effectively sanctioned the rigging of elections by political parties when it rejected legal appeals that it overturn partisan gerrymanders by Democrats in Maryland and Republicans in North Carolina. With two Trump appointees bolstering a slim 5-4 majority, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that lawsuits challenging the partisan gerrymandering – and upheld by lower courts – raised issues that were “beyond the reach of federal courts” and that wading into that issue would amount to “an unprecedented expansion of judicial power.”

With her voice trembling as she spoke for the court’s four dissenters, Justice Elena Kagan lamented in sad protest that the high court was abdicating its responsibility to settle a deeply divisive constitutional issue. “For the first time ever, this Court refuses to remedy a constitutional violation because it thinks the task beyond judicial capabilities.”

The high court cast a shadow over lower court rulings that invalidated congressional and legislative district maps drawn by Republican-controlled legislatures in Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin, as well as North Carolina, and gave the green light for fierce partisan battles in the 2020 elections for control of state governments that will have the unrestricted power to draw new election maps in 2021 for Congress and all 5o0 state legislatures. The Supreme Court signaled to reformers that their only future hope for change lies in turning to state courts or mounting reform ballot initiatives in the 26 states that allow popular referendums.

Justice Ruth Bader GinsburgPhoto credit: Steve Petteway, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States (CC) Talk News Radio Service

High Court Gives Green Light to Citizen Action

The green light for citizen action on gerrymander reform came in 2015 from the U.S. Supreme Court decision in an Arizona case. With a stunning 5-4 ruling, the high court held that the voters of Arizona had the right and the authority to create an independent redistricting commission to map Arizona’s Congressional districts despite a diehard attempt by the Arizona legislature to hang on to the power to redistrict election maps as the legislature’s sole prerogative.

Arizona’s Republican-dominated legislature filed suit challenging the constitutional legitimacy of the state’s independent redistricting commission, which was established by a referendum of Arizona voters in 2000. The legislature argued that under the U.S. Constitution, the state legislature – and only the state legislature – was empowered to set the rules for elections. But the high court rejecting the legislature’s lawsuit.

Writing for the 5-4 majority on June 29, 2015, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asserted that “the animating principle of our Constitution is that the people themselves are the originating source of all the powers of government.” In Arizona, the high court ruled, voters were exercising the state’s legislative power through a popular referendum authorized by the Arizona constitution.

Florida Court Throws Out Stacked Deck

Ten days later, in a parallel case, the Florida Supreme Court struck down the partisan gerrymandering of Florida’s congressional districts by the Republican-controlled legislature in 2012. In a 5-2 ruling, the court ordered that the maps and lines for eight congressional districts be redrawn within 100 days, forcing the legislature into a special session.

In scathing language, the Florida high court approved a lower court’s finding that the legislature’s redistricting plan had been tainted by the “unconstitutional intent to favor the Republican Party and incumbent lawmakers.” The court found that Republican Party “operatives” and political consultants “did in fact conspire to manipulate and influence the redistricting process” in cahoots with GOP legislators.

In Florida as in Arizona, the groundwork for court decisions was laid by grassroots citizen action. In 2010, Florida voters adopted two amendments to the state constitution that barred the drawing of legislative district lines “with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or incumbent.”

As a tenacious Legal investigation and disclosure of private emails and documents later revealed, Republican legislative leaders defied the voters and engaged in a clandestine partisan gerrymander. In protest, the League of Women Voters, Common Cause, and Fair Districts Florida filed suit. In July 2015, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the legislature had carried out a “blatantly unconstitutional:” gerrymander and ordered redrawing of eight congressional districts and all 40 state senate districts.

When the legislature had trouble coming up with revised maps, lower courts stepped in to supervise the redrawing of election districts with the intent to make elections more competitive and give voters more choice. The new, court-ordered maps went into play for the first time in 2016 and produced some notable upsets in both parties, with political newcomers ousting long-serving incumbents.

CC) Florida House

Florida State Rep. Richard Corcoran at Redistricting Subcommittee. (CC) Florida House

Shifting to Independent Commissions

In the Arizona decision, the U.S. Supreme Court highlighted the positive gains for voters achieved by using nonpartisan independent commissions. These commissions, the court noted, had created “more competitive” congressional districts, giving voters more choice in elections, and had eliminated the long-standing “conflicts of interest” of partisan legislators manipulating district lines to keep themselves in office.

As of now, six states have instituted independent redistricting commissions – Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, and Washington. Two more states, Hawaii and New Jersey, have turned over redistricting to balanced bipartisan commissions with a court-appointed nonpartisan neutral chairman. Iowa uses a nonpartisan legislative services agency to redraw political districts every decade. And, of course, voters in Florida took the boldest action against partisan gerrymandering by simply making it unconstitutional to draw election maps that favor one party.

More reforms are being powered by voter revolts at the grassroots.  Citizen movements, reaching across the political spectrum, have been pressing to end partisan gerrymandering in 12 states, either through ballot initiatives or legislative action.  In addition to gerrymander reforms adopted by voters in Colorado Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, and Utah in 2018, other drives for reform have cropped up in recent years in Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota. In red states as well as blue, citizen groups and legislators see gerrymander reform, like term limits,  as a way to dislodge incumbent politicians from a perpetual lock on power.

The Mounting Legal Challenge

For the past five years, fierce legal battles have been waged in eight states where partisan gerrymandering is most entrenched – Alabama, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Federal appeals courts, backed by the U.S. Supreme Court, have ruled against what courts have determined is racial gerrymandering that dilutes the voting power of blacks and Latinos in Alabama, North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia.

Typically, the targets of these lawsuits are ludicrously shaped districts where lawmakers have packed masses of opposition voters, usually minority voters, so that they can gain partisan advantage in other districts next door. In North Carolina, Republican lawmakers packed the black sections of Greensboro, and Charlotte at opposite ends of a stringy, worm-like district that snakes its way 90 miles down Interstate I-85, picking up blobs of black voting communities along the way. The Virginia GOP created a wiggly worm district down I-64 to include the black parts of Richmond, Norfolk, and Virginia Beach. In Maryland, Democrats concocted a winning district that looks like a jagged stick drawing of a long-legged bird, in flight.

These cartoon districts fly in the face of state constitutions or laws that require election districts to be compact, contiguous, and respect existing county and city boundaries. Instead, mapmakers for both parties use any shape they can to string together their own voters in a winnable district. Or conversely, they pack as many opposition voters as possible into districts they figure they cannot win, and thus make their opponents waste votes in lopsided victories, while the in-party spreads its own voters around to win more districts.

Multiplying Lawsuits against Gerrymandering

The most frontal assault on the hoary practice of political parties manipulating election maps for their own advantage comes from citizen lawsuits in Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Maryland. Voters from both parties in those states charge that they are being denied equal protection under the 14th Amendment and that their First Amendment rights are being undermined by partisan legislatures stacking the deck against the underdog party and its voters.

The first case against partisan gerrymandering, going beyond racial and ethnic gerrymandering, was brought by a dozen Wisconsin Democratic voters against the Republican-dominated state legislature. Appearing before the high court in October 2017, the Wisconsin plaintiffs argued that the GOP gerrymander was so unfair that it blocks Democrats from gaining a majority of legislative seats even when they win a majority of the vote. They cited 2012, when Democratic candidates for the statehouse won 52% of the popular vote but Democrats were relegated to only 39% of the seats. A three-judge appeals court ruled the Wisconsin gerrymander unconstitutional.

Former GOP presidential nominees Bob Dole and John McCain, Ohio Gov. John Kasich + other Republican VIPs urge Supreme Court to block partisan gerrymandering.

So pivotal was the Wisconsin case that prominent Republicans led by former GOP presidential nominees John McCain of Arizona and Robert Dole of Kansas and Ohio Governor John Kasich broke ranks with their party and filed a legal brief calling upon the Supreme Court to rule against extreme partisan gerrymanders. “Partisan gerrymandering has become a tool for powerful interests to distort the democratic process,” McCain and the other prominent Republicans argued in their legal brief. But on a technicality, the high court sent the case back to the federal district court for more evidence.

In Maryland, the fight against partisan gerrymandering is waged by a handful of Republican voters against the Democrats who dominated the state government during the gerrymander of 2011. Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, elected since then, has been on the warpath against Democratic gerrymandering in his state, declaring that the issue “is not right versus left but right versus wrong.” The Supreme court sent that case, and another lawsuit by Democrats in North Carolina, back to lower courts for more argumentation. But those cases are already headed back to the high court for what could be a blockbuster decision on partisan gerrymandering.

Strong Medicine – The Top-Two Primary

California, Washington State, and Louisiana have gone a step further for voters, by establishing non-partisan primaries, which give voters maximum choice by opening up primary elections and abolishing party control. The so-called Top-Two Primary is the most open of all – more open than so-called “open” primaries that let voters choose to vote either in the Democratic or the Republican primary, but then restricts them to only the candidates of that one party.

In the Top-Two primary, there is no limit on voters’ choices. Citizens can v0te for any candidate, hopscotching from one party to the other and splitting their ticket if they wish, because all candidates, no matter what their party affiliation, run in the same non-partisan primary. For each office, the two candidates with the most votes – the Top-Two – advance to the general election, even if they come from the same party.

The major virtue of this system, in an era when a small turnout in party primaries often determines the ultimate winner, is that independent voters and members of minority parties now get to vote in what is often the decisive election. That helps to boost voter turnout and restore the political middle, proponents argue. Moderate candidates, with poor chances in a closed party primary, do much better in the Top-Two, where candidates need to appeal across party lines to all voters and thus move toward the political center.

The record in Washington State supports that argument. Since 2008, when Washington began using the Top-Two Primary, voting by the state’s delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives has become more moderate. Voter turnout jumped from 2006 to 2010 and in subsequent elections, the Top-Two Primary enabled some moderate candidates in both major parties to win seats in Congress.

Gerrymandering – What’s Happening in Your State?

Alabama:

Alaska:

  • Nov. 3, 1998 – A 52% majority of Alaska’s voters, adopting for the first time an independent redistricting commission, approve a state constitutional amendment to establish the Alaska Reapportionment Board to draw boundaries for state house and senate districts. (Alaska has only one Congressional district.) All five members of the independent commission must be chosen without regard to party affiliation and none may be public officials or employees when appointed to the commission. The Governor chooses two commissioners, the state Senate and House majority leaders each choose one, and the Chief Justice of the Alaska Supreme Court chooses one.

Arizona:

  • Nov. 7, 2000 –By a majority of 56.1%, Arizona voters approve an amendment to the Arizona Constitution to create a five-member independent redistricting commission (AIRC) to map congressional and legislative districts. To deter partisan influence, Arizona’s amendment bars the use of political party registration, voting history data, and residences of incumbents and other candidates in creating political districts. It excludes active partisan politicians by forbidding current or recent public officials, political candidates, or party officers from serving on the commission. The crucial balance of power on the commission is given to a political independent. To insulate the commission from party politics, the new system requires the commissioners to be chosen from a panel pre-selected by State Commission on Appellate Court Appointments with 25 nominees – 10 Democrats, 10 Republicans, and 5 independents. From that panel, four commission members are appointed by the majority and minority leaders of Arizona’s two legislative chambers, and these four commissioners select the fifth member. The amendment specifies that politically “competitive districts” are favored so long as the districts are of equal population, geographically compact, contiguous, coincide roughly with census tracts, city or county boundaries, or natural geographic features.
  • October 2001 – Arizona’s Independent Redistricting Commission, chaired by political independent Steven Lynn and with two Republican and two Democratic members, completes its first redistricting plan without controversy.
  • Spring 2011 – By adding 1,261,585 people to its population since 2000, Arizona gains a ninth congressional seat, intensifying interest in redistricting for 2011.
  • Oct. 4, 2011 – Arizona’s Independent Redistricting Commission completes its new congressional map, with four districts considered safe for Republicans, two safe for Democrats, and three highly competitive. The plan is approved by a 3-1 vote from AIRC Chair Colleen Mathis and two Democratic commissions. One Republican commissioner votes No; the other abstains.
  • Nov. 1, 2011- With Tea Party and hard-line Republicans angrily claiming that Arizona’s new redistricting plan favors Democrats, Republican Governor Jan Brewer, orders impeachment and removal of the AIRC’s independent chair Colleen Mathis. In a straight party-line vote, the Arizona state Senate votes 21-6 to approve the governor’s action, as required by law. State law allows removal of a commissioner “for substantial neglect of duty, gross misconduct in office, or inability to discharge the duties of office.” Mathis files a legal appeal.
  • Nov 17, 2011 – In a swift and unanimous 5-0 decision, Arizona Supreme Court rules that the governor’s firing of Mathis is illegal and orders that Mathis be reinstated as AIRC chair.
  • June 6, 2012 – Arizona Legislature files suit in federal court, challenging the legitimacy of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. Its suit argues that the Elections Clause of U.S. Constitution states that “[t]he Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof” and that no other body can assume this function. Attorneys for the independent commission contend that in the popular referendum of 2000 establishing the Independent Redistricting Commission, the people of Arizona were exercising legislative power granted them by the Arizona constitution.
  • Nov 6, 2012 – Under the AIRC redistricting plan, Democratic candidates win all three of the competitive congressional districts, giving Democrats a 5-4 edge over Republicans in the state’s congressional delegation. Republicans carry four safe GOP districts and Democrats carry their two safe districts.
  • Feb. 2014 – A three-judge federal appeals court dismisses the Arizona legislature’s lawsuit against the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. The legislature appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court.
  • Oct. 2, 2014 – U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear the Arizona case. Reform advocates fear the worst, reasoning that the Supreme Court would not have taken the case unless several justices were already prepared to overrule the appeals court decision. “If the Court strikes down Arizona voters’ right to create an independent redistricting commission as an alternative to the legislature drawing the maps, it will set a dangerous precedent that undermines Americans from using direct democracy to enact change when legislators refuse to do so,” asserted Kathay Feng, national redistricting director for Common Cause.
  • March 2, 2015 – Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Arizona case with Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito sounding sympathetic to the Arizona legislature’s argument. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and Stephen Breyer are more skeptical. The question mark is Justice Anthony Kennedy.
  • June 29, 2015 – In a blow to partisan gerrymandering and a decision with sweeping implications for political reform across the U.S., the Supreme Court rules in favor of Arizona’s Independent Redistricting Commission. The court holds that Arizona’s voters were entitled to try to make the process of drawing congressional districts less partisan by creating an independent commission. Writing for 5-4 majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg asserts that the Constitution’s reference to the “legislature” encompasses the concept of citizens exercising legislative power since the Arizona constitution granted that power to the electorate through popular referendums. “The animating principle of our Constitution,” Ginsburg wrote, “is that the people themselves are the originating source of all the powers of government.” Writing in dissent, Chief Justice Roberts asserted that cutting the legislature entirely out of the redistricting process violated the Constitution. Justice Anthony Kennedy, casting the swing vote, is evidently swayed by personal experience as a voter and law professor in California, where he had seen citizen initiatives work to overcome the self-interested actions of the legislature.
  • Jan. 21, 2016 – The Open and Honest Coalition, led by two former mayors of Phoenix, launches a drive for a popular vote to amend the Arizona constitution to replace the state’s party primaries with a single non-partisan primary, open to all voters, including independents. Candidates from all parties, plus political independents, would run in that one primary, with the two top vote-getters moving on to compete in the general election. John Opdyke, president of Open Primaries, says his group has donated $1 million to the citizen initiative and will work to raise another $13 million to back two measures – reform of the state’s party primary system and a companion measure to help expose dark money flowing into campaigns for state offices and congressional seats. Texas billionaire John Arnold is identified as the primary donor to the campaign.
  • AZMapLegislative

    State legislative districts in central Arizona, drawn by Independent Redistricting Commission.

    April 30, 2016 – U.S. Supreme Court unanimously endorses legislative redistricting map drawn in 2011 by state’s independent redistricting commission, rejecting challenge by Republicans that the plan was biased in favor of Democrats. In 2009-10, Republicans held a 21-9 majority in state senate and 40-20 majority in the house. In 2012, after redistricting based on the 2010 census, GOP majorities fell to 17-13 in the senate and 36-24 in the house. Republicans said redistricting hurt them. Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the court, dismissed the charge that the commission had engaged in partisan redistricting. He credited the commission with meeting legal requirements to protect the rights of minority voters and if Republican voters were ‘likely” to be worse off, this “may well reflect the tendency of minority populations in Arizona … to vote disproportionately for Democrats.”

  • Dec 22, 2021 – In the battleground state of Arizona, final congressional district maps give Republicans a chance to pick up one and possibly two more House seats. shifting the balance in the state’s delegation from 5-4 blue to 6-3 red.  Over protests of its Democratic members, Arizona’s bipartisan redistricting commission put incumbent Democrat Tom O’Halleran in jeopardy by giving his northeast Arizona district a strong Republican tilt, one of four districts with a solid majority of Republican voters.  The commission created two strongly pro-Democratic districts and three competitive districts in the suburbs of Phoenix and Tucson, two of which lean Republican and one leaning slightly Democratic. The GOP’s best shot for picking up a second seat comes in the Republican-leaning sixth congressional district where incumbent Democrat Anne Kirkpatrick is retiring. The five-member commission’s two Democratic members blamed Erika Neuberg, the commission’s politically independent chair, for repeatedly siding with the two Republican commissioners and tilting district maps in the GOP’s favor. “We are in a state now that has five Democrats and four Republicans that have been elected to Congress,” Democratic commissioner Shereen Lerner told Politico. “There is no excuse for drawing a six to three map that favors either party.” Republicans mocked Democrats’ complaints. “The map achieves what Democrats say they want nationally. It maximizes the number of competitive seats in Arizona,” said Adam Kincaid, executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust. “There’s three good Republican seats. There’s two or three good Democrat seats. And then there’s three to five competitive seats, depending on the cycle.”

Arkansas:

California:

  • Nov. 4, 2008 – In a historic move, California voters approve Proposition 11 (The Voters First Act), an initiative for a constitutional amendment that shifts the power to redraw the boundaries of state legislative districts and districts for the state Board of Equalization from the California legislature to a new 14-member Citizens Redistricting Commission—effective in 2011. Four previous efforts at similar reforms had failed in 1982, 1984, 1990, and 2005, but the push in 2008 earns the backing of Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. But the 2008 reform leaves the drawing of Congressional district lines in the hands of the legislature.
  • June 8, 2010 – By a 54%-46% majority, California voters approve the Top-Two Primaries Act, an amendment to the state constitution requiring that all candidates for state political offices run in a single primary open to all registered voters, with the top-two vote-getters meeting in a runoff. A similar measure had failed in a popular vote in 2004. Proponents contend that by exposing all candidates to all voters, there is a greater chance that more moderate members will be elected to Congress and the California State Legislature.
  • Nov. 2, 2010 – California voters pass Proposition 20, which expands the power of the state’s independent Redistricting Commission to draw congressional district boundaries as well as state legislative districts. Prop 20 is vigorously opposed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and other congressional Democrats including 15-term Rep. Howard Berman of Los Angeles, both of whom want the Democratic-controlled state legislature to do congressional redistricting. But they are overcome by a powerful citizens movement sparked and heavily funded by Charles Munger Jr. (son of investment banker Charles Munger), who spent more than $12 million of his own money to pass Prop. 20.
  • Aug. 15, 2011 – California’s new 14-member citizens redistricting commission completes redrawing of maps for the state’s 53 congressional districts and 120 legislative districts. A commission composed of five Democrats, five Republicans, and four members from neither major party adopts district lines that redraw boundaries of old districts, merging some and inevitably pitting some members of the same party against each other. Independent studies by the Public Policy Institute of California, the National Journal, and Ballotpedia find that California now has some of the most competitive districts in the nation.
  • Nov 6, 2012 – California’s new redistricting plan and Top-Two Primary system pit same-party candidates against each other in nine of the state’s 53 congressional districts, including seven races fought between two Democrats. There were also 19 same-party races in the state legislature, 12 rated as highly competitive. Political commentators see some candidates adopting less extreme positions and shifting toward more centrist voter appeal. “What we’ve noticed is candidates in California playing to a wider ideological audience as a result of the top-two primary, instead of tailoring their message to a very narrow base,” says David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report. Also, more than a dozen Republican candidates in contested races refuse to sign a traditional GOP pledge vowing no new taxes. But in the new Top-Two Primary, some candidates seem afraid of offending Democratic voters with a rigid anti-tax stance.
  • Jan. 23, 2015 – The California Citizens Redistricting Commission (CRC), fearing that its own existence and authority is jeopardized by a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, files an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the Arizona commission.
  • June 29, 2015 – The U. S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling rejecting the Arizona legislature’s legal challenge to that state’s independent redistricting commission, has the effect of also endorsing California’s citizen commission.
  • Dec 20, 2021 -California’s independent trans-partisan redistricting commission approves new election maps for the next decade, creating 43 Congressional districts that lean Democratic, seven that lean Republican, and two that are highly competitive. Based on the voter composition of the new districts, Republicans face tough prospects for retaining their current 11 House seats, including four pickups in  2020, and Democrats are better positioned to gain another seat or two. The new maps, drawn by a transpartisan commission of five democrats, Five Republicans and four unaffiliated Californians, also offer greater opportunities for Latino candidates with 16 districts projected to have at least 50% Latino voting-age population. So many changes were made in district boundaries, that nine current incumbents from both parties quickly announced plans to run in different districts in 2022, including Democrats Ami Bera, Jim Costa, Mark DeSaulnier, John Garamundi, Josh Harder, Doris Matsui, and  Katie Porter and Republicans Young Kim and Michelle Steel. Ovrall, Democratic strategists hailed the plan but Republicans were upset.  ““This was definitely a good outcome for Democrats.” said Paul Mitchell, owner of the firm Redistricting Partners.  “Republicans have 11 current members — in these maps they should only be sending nine back to Congress in 2022.” National Republican Redistricting Trust Executive Director Adam Kincaid decried the new boundaries as stacked in Democrats’ favor and sccused the commission of taking sides.  “California’s ‘independent’ redistricting commission is producing wildly contorted congressional lines that rival the extreme gerrymanders in Illinois and Maryland, These new draft maps ignore California’s communities in a desperate attempt to try to save Nancy Pelosi’s majority.”

Colorado:

Delaware:

Florida:

Georgia:

Hawaii:

  • 1968 – Hawaii’s independent redistricting commission, known simply as The Hawaii Commission, is created by a State Constitutional Convention, prompted by a 1965 U.S. district court order invalidating the state’s senate apportionment scheme as a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause. An amendment to Article IV of the Hawaii Constitution gives exclusive authority to an independent, bipartisan nine-member commission to determine congressional and legislative district boundaries with the proviso that no district may be drawn so as to unduly favor a person or political faction. Eight commission members are appointed by the legislative leaders of the majority and minority parties, four to each party. Those eight members choose the ninth, tie-breaking member, but if they deadlock, as often happens, the ninth member is chosen by the state supreme court. In 2011, the court named Victoria Marks, a retired judge and professional mediator.

Idaho:

  • 1993 – Idaho Legislature passes SJR 105 that creates a constitutional citizen’s body, the Commission on Reapportionment, in charge of drawing the legislative and congressional districts in Idaho.
  • Legislature passes SJR 105 that creates a constitutional citizen’s body, the Commission on Reapportionment, in charge of drawing the legislative and congressional districts in Idaho.
  • Nov. 8, 1994 – By a 64% majority, Idaho voters adopt a constitutional amendment establishing an independent, bipartisan six-member commission to draw the maps of the state’s political districts. No commission member can have served as an elected official, legislative district representative, or state party officer for the past two years or can have been a registered lobbyist during the previous year. To maintain a bipartisan balance, one commission member is chosen by each of the following – majority and minority leaders of both houses of the state legislature and the chairs of the Republican and Democratic parties. Idaho law states that oddly-shaped districts are disfavored and the creation of bizarrely-shaped districts in order to string together voters of a particular race will be struck down by the courts if race was the predominant factor in creating the districts.

Illinois:

Indiana:

  • Jan. 12, 2015 – Indiana’s legislative leaders introduce bill to study how to reform Indiana’s gerrymandering of political district lines. Similar legislation passed the Indiana House in 2014, but failed in the Senate. This time, Republican Senate President Pro-tem David Long and Republican House Speaker Bryan Bosma join with Democratic minority leaders Senator Timothy Lanane and Representative Scott Pelath, to con-sponsor reform bill. “We need to move on this discussion and I think this is the year to do that,” Senator Long tells the media. Critics have complained that gerrymandering by the Republican-dominated legislature in 2011 was so stacked in favor of incumbents that in 2014, 44 House seats were not even contested, a fairly typical pattern in recent elections. “I don’t think right now the way we do our redistricting has credibility with the public,” comments Senator Lanane. “People assume we draw squiggly lines for the party in power. It’s all about politics – not democracy. We need to change that perception and that reality.”
  • May 4, 2015 – Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signs law calling for a bipartisan committee to study best way to reform Indiana’s redistricting system and whether it will require amendment to the state constitution, which authorizes the legislature to do redistricting. With strong bipartisan backing, a reform bill setting up a study committee passes by 153-95 in the House and 43-7 in the Senate. Governor and legislature were pushed to move by a broad reform movement – the Coalition for Independent Redistricting. Spearheaded by Common Cause and the League of Women Voters, the coalition also includes the Indiana Farmers Union, Central Indiana Jobs with Justice, ACLU Indiana, Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, NAACP Indiana, Hoosier Environmental Council and others.
  • Oct. 1, 2015 – Interim study committee on redistricting holds initial meeting, sets agenda, and fixes Dec. 1, 2016 as the deadline for its final report, pushing redistricting issue beyond 2016 election,
  • March 7, 2016: Democratic-controlled Lafayette City Council and the West Lafayette City Council, and the all-Republican Tippecanoe County Board of Commissioners unanimously pass resolutions urging Interim Committee on Redistricting to endorse the idea of a citizen-led redistricting commission in its final report. Previously Michigan city council endorsed the resolution, promoted by the League of Women Voters. The measure calls for a citizen commission to oversee redistricting of Indiana’s legislative and congressional districts while respecting; one-vote, one person; the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as well as mapping districts that are compact, contiguous and respect local communities of interest.

Iowa:

  • 1980 – In a near-unanimous vote, Iowa legislature passes House File 707 to take partisanship out of redistricting and to give responsibility for drafting redistricting plans to a nonpartisan state agency, the Legislative Services Agency. LSA, which is instructed by law not to consider party registration, past votes, or other political data, is tasked with formulating a complete redistricting plan for submission to the legislature without the involvement of any elected officials or politicians. Iowa law requires the districts to be created on the basis of four criteria: equal population, contiguousness, compactness, and respect for political subdivisions. “This puts the voter as the primary consideration,” says Ed Cook, the agency’s legal counsel. “The basic concept is if it’s a blind process, the result will be fair
  • The Iowa legislature, which holds hearings on redistricting, can approve or reject the LSA staff’s congressional redistricting plans, but lawmakers cannot amend or alter the plan. If the LSA plan is rejected twice by lawmakers, the legislature can then amend or substitute for the third staff plan but must also win the approval of the governor. In practice, Iowa’s four-member congressional delegation comes out evenly split – two Democrats and two Republicans – in 2014, reflecting the almost dead-even party registration. Iowa has more political independents than either Democrats or Republicans.
  • Nov 4, 2021- Iowa’s Republican  Gov Kim Reynolds sign new district maps that hew closely to old maps, though giving a better edge to Republican candidates than previously and making it harder for the one Democratic incumbent, Rep. Cindy Axne, to carry her district around Des Moines. The maps were drawn by the state’s nonpartisan legislative staff, but the first set was rejected by the Republican-controlled state legislature. Under the second set of maps, more to the legislature’s liking, the Des Moines Register estimated that Democrats had a shot at winning only one of Iowa’s four House seats. The nonpartisan Princeg\ton gerrymander project rated Demorats’; chances at zero.

Kansas:

Louisiana:

  • June 28,2022-U.S. Supreme Sourt effectively restores GOP gerrymander in Louisiana, which had been blocked with temporary injunction by federal district court as blatantly partisan gerrymander. Brief supreme court order, which included no reasoning, put the case on hold while it rules in a parallel case from Alabama. But this legal delay has the effect to reinstituting the partisan gerrymanders for the 2022 elections. Louisiana legislature’s maps had been challenged on grounds of racial discrimination. Black are represented by only one of Louisiana’s six congressional though state population is roughly one-third black. According to the 2020 census, Black population grew by 3.8% while white population shrank by 6.3%. Democratic Gov. John Bell Edwards vetoed the FRepublican-controlled legislatures election district maps saying they were “Not fair” to people of Louisiana. The legislature overrode governor’s veto.

Maryland:

  • Feb. 4, 2015 – Maryland’s Republican Gov. Larry Hogan calls for reform of the state’s partisan gerrymandering that independent experts have called the most stacked redistricting system in any state controlled by Democrats. “Gerrymandering is a form of political gamesmanship that stifles real political debate and deprives citizens of meaningful choices,” declares Hogan, a publicly financed underdog victor in the 2014 gubernatorial race. “Fair and competitive elections – and having checks and balances – make for a more vibrant and responsive citizen republic.” Hogan says his ultimate goal is to remove the legislature from redistricting and give that authority to an independent, bipartisan commission.
  • June 24, 2015 – The conservative group Judicial Watch and several Maryland Republican voters file a lawsuit charging that Maryland’s weird-shaped congressional districts are “unlawful” and must be redrawn to meet legal standards requiring compact districts. So bizarre is the zig-zag shape of Maryland’s third district that a federal judge once compared it to a “broken-winged pterodactyl, lying prostrate across the center of the state.” The Judicial Watch lawsuit also challenges the sixth district where the Democratic gerrymandering in 2011 added a large slice of the Democrat-heavy DC suburbs to what had been a Republican stronghold in western Maryland. The lawsuit argues that gerrymandering caused 10-term Republican Congressman Roscoe Bartlett to lose in 2012 to Democrat John Delaney – a turnover that gave Democrats a 7-1 edge in the state’s House delegation, though Democrats hold only a 2-1 margin among Maryland voters.
  • Maryland’s case has attracted legal interest because, if successful, it could have a broad impact in other states because it makes the unprecedented argument that all voters are injured based on objective measurements of whether election districts are compact and contiguous, as required by law. Judicial Watch has produced a mathematical formula for measuring the compactness of a district by comparing the ratio of its perimeter to its size because the bizarre shapes of highly gerrymandered districts typically give them long perimeters, whereas compact, fairly square-shaped districts have much shorter perimeters. If the court accepts this standard, it would enable a judge to use a mathematical formula to spot gerrymandering and to require district maps to be redrawn.
  • Aug. 6, 2015 – Gov. Larry Hogan, naming an 11-member bipartisan commission to revamp Maryland’s system of partisan gerrymandering, said he wants to press for a state constitutional amendment. Hogan’s plan for election reform wins immediate support from election reform advocates such as Common Cause and the League of Women Voters, but it is dismissed by Democrats who control the Maryland General Assembly and profit from partisan gerrymandering.
  • Dec. 8, 2015 – In a surprise decision, U.S. Supreme overruled two lower courts, giving green light for Maryland man to proceed with an unusual legal challenge against Democratic gerrymandering of congressional districts with the unprecedented argument that it violates his First Amendment rights and those of other Republican voters. Most challenges to partisan gerrymandering are based on the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, but in the 2004 decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy, often the swing vote in the high court, wrote that First Amendment could be used as the basis of redistricting lawsuit if plaintiffs could show they were subject to “disfavored treatment” because of their political views. Case brought by former federal worker, now law student Stephen Shapiro, now goes before a three-judge federal panel.

  • Gov. Larry Hogan (R), holds a May 8, 2017 press conference about redistricting in Maryland. Source: Maryland GovPics.

    April 7, 2017 -Democratic majorities in Maryland legislature pass bill for election redistricting reform that would throw out Democrats’ partisan gerrymandering, provided that five other Atlantic Coast states – New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia – commit to similar reforms. Legislation for the six-state compact reform passes largely on party-line vote – 87-51 in House of Delegates and 30-16 in Senate – after a House committee kills proposal by Republican Gov. Larry Hogan to set up an independent redistricting commission for Maryland alone. By manipulating election district lines, Maryland Democrats have historically parlayed their 2-1 majority among voters into a lopsided 7-1 majority in Congressional seats. In North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, Republican-dominated legislatures have done the opposite – drawn district maps to favor GOP candidates. Since both parties play the gerrymander game, legislators in Maryland and Pennsylvania have proposed a multi-state compact to make elections fairer. “What we’re doing in the state of Maryland is standing up and saying ‘ladies and gentlemen we have a national problem,’” said Democratic Sen. Bill Ferguson. “The only way we do it, and we have a significant impact, is if we do it together with our partner states.”

  • May 8, 2017 – Republican Gov. Larry Hogan vetoes Democratic legislation adopting gerrymander reform as part of a six-state Mid-Atlantic Compact for gerrymander reform, reaching from New York to North Carolina. Hogan dismisses the multi-state compact as a partisan “smokescreen” by Democrats to avoid taking action in Maryland. “We decided we’re not going to wait for other states to act,” Hogan asserts, accusing the Democratic majority in the state legislature of ignoring the “overwhelming majority of the people of Maryland” who support nonpartisan redistricting reforms. He vows to take the gerrymander reform issue to voters when he runs for re-election in 2018. Polls show 75% of Maryland voters favor taking power to remap election districts out of the hands of the partisan legislature.
  • July 15, 2017- Three-judge federal court, calling gerrymandering a “cancer on our democracy,” sides with Republican voters challenging maps drawn for Maryland congressional districts by state’s Democratic-dominated legislature. The panel found convincing evidence that Maryland’s Democratic leaders intentionally drew voting boundaries to make it easier for Democrats to defeat Republican incumbent Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett in the 6th district and pick up an additional congressional seat in 2012. But the judicial panel was divided about whether to order state to redraw 6th district lines before the 2018 election.
  • Dec. 8, 2017 – U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear case from Maryland Republican voters charging that state legislature, run by Democrats, violated their First Amendment rights by stacking the election map against them in state’s 6th congressional district. GOP lawsuit contends that Republican voters were being punished for their beliefs and their past votes for GOP candidates, in violation of the First Amendment. In August, an appeals court ruled 2-1 against Republican voters who then appealed to U.S. Supreme Court.
  • June 18, 2018 – U.S. Supreme Court sidesteps clearcut decision on Republican lawsuit accusing Democratic majority in Maryland legislature of partisan gerrymander that violated First Amendment rights of GOP voters in state’s 6th congressional district and sends the case back to the district court for trial. Lawsuit by Republican voters charged that the value of their votes was diluted by legislature’s 2011 gerrymander that “reshuffled fully half of the district’s 720,000 residents.” Democratic redrawing of district lines added masses of Democratic voters and moved out masses of Republicans to ensure that Democrats would win the seat that had been held for ten terms by Tea Party Republican Roscoe Bartlett. Attorneys for Republican voters had asked Supreme Court for a hurry-up ruling in time for 2018 election but the high court said they had waited too late to file their complaint to have it affect 2018 elections. Now, trial will be geared toward 2020 elections.
  • Nov 7, 2018 – Three-judge federal district court panel tosses out Maryland’s gerrymandering of sixth congressional district and bars state from using that map in future elections. Asserting that partisan gerrymandering “is widely considered to be repugnant to representative democracy,” the three judges find that  Democratic-controlled state legislature and former Gov. Martin O’Malley violated the First Amendment rights of Republican voters when they targeted a Republican incumbent for defeat. 

 Maryland has appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is likely to hear the case in the spring of 2019.
  • Jan 4, 2019- In a case that could lead to landmark ruling, US Supreme Court agrees to hear arguments challenging legality of Maryland Democratic redistricting plan struck down by three-judge federal panel,  and a parallel case charging North Carolina Republicans with gerrymandering congressional district maps. Each case charges that First Amendment rights of minority party voters have been violated. In past cases, high court has sidestepped a clearcut decision on whether partisan gerrymandering violates the U.S. Constitution, but critics keeping bringing suits. “Whether it is Democrats or Republicans manipulating the election maps, gerrymanders cheat voters out of true representation,” said Karen Hobert Flynn, national president of Common Cause.  “The Supreme Court has the opportunity to set a clear standard that will restore a meaningful vote to millions of Americans disenfranchised by gerrymanders in Maryland, North Carolina and across the country.”
  • June 27, 2019 – U.S. Supreme Court overturns lower court ruling that invalidated Democratic gerrymandering of Maryland’s congressional districts and left pro-Democratic partisan maps in place. With two Trump appointees bolstering a slim 5-4 majority, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that lawsuit challenging the partisan gerrymandering – and upheld by a lower court – raised issues that were “beyond the reach of federal courts.” Roberts contended that for the high court to wade into that issue would amount to “an unprecedented expansion of judicial power.” Republican voters in Maryland, joined by national conservative non-partisan groups had contended that the democratic legislature had manipulated congressional district maps in ways that diluted the value of Republican voters, thereby violating their rights to freedom of speech and equal protection of the laws under the 1st and 14th amendments of the Constitution. A three-judge lower court panel agreed, but while Supreme Court justices deplored the extreme partisan gerrymandering practiced in the state, the court majority declared the court was powerless to remedy the situation. It said the solutions lie in hands of voters and courts at the state level. Speaking for the four dissenting justices and with her voice trembling, Justice Elena Kagan accused the high court majority of abdicating its responsibility to settle a deeply divisive constitutional issue. “For the first time ever, this Court refuses to remedy a constitutional violation because it thinks the task beyond judicial capabilities,” Kagan asserted.
  • Mar 25, 2022- Maryland judge throws out maps for state’s congressional districts, calling them an “extreme partisan gerrymander” and handing victory to Republican plaintiffs who asserted that Democratic-run state legislature sought to silence their votes. Ruling by Arundel County senior Judge Lynne A. Battaglia enjoined map from being used in 2022 primary and general elections and ordered state legislature to redraw the map in five days. Judge Batteglia ruled that the map violated the state constitution’s equal protection, free speech and free elections clauses. A spokesman  for Republican Gov Larry Hogan called the court decision ”a monumental victory for every Marylander who cares about protecting our democracy, bringing fairness to our elections and putting people in charge.”
  • April 4, 2022- Maryland’s Republican  Gov. Larry Hogan signs into law a modified  plan for the state’s congressional districts, which was  slightly redrawn by Democrats after a judge called threw out original Democratic plan. While Hogan said the new map is “not perfect,” he called it a “huge step in the right direction – miles away from the incredibly gerrymandered map that was thrown out by the court.”  Campaign experts forecast that the new introit boundaries will likely generate a congressional delegation much like the current one. Under this plan, Democrats are favored to win six districts , Republicans to win one, and  eighth district is considered competitive,

Michigan

Minnesota:

  • March 19, 2002 – The Minnesota supreme court, forced to intervene by legislative gridlock, issues new maps for Minnesota’s congressional and legislative districts. Following the 2000 census, the state legislature sought to carry out redistricting, but with control in the two houses divided between Democrats and Republicans, the legislature failed to reach an agreement on redistricting. That sends the issue to the courts.
  • May 19, 2011 – Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed the redistricting maps drawn up by the Republican-dominated state legislature for Minnesota’s congressional and legislative districts. The Minnesota Supreme Court appointed a judicial panel to drawn the lines. the Panel issues its map on Feb. 21, 2012 and, according to The Almanac of American Politics, the new map “radically rearranged state legislative seats.”
  • March 2015 – Fearing the loss of congressional seat after the 2020 census and a new gridlock over redistricting, Democratic and Republican lawmakers draft plan to create new five-member commission of retired state judges to create a redistricting plan. Their proposal would allow the legislature to accept or reject but not modify, but if it rejects the first two proposals, it must accept third proposal. Plan authored by Democratic State Senator Kent Eken has backing of some Republican lawmakers and Secretary of State Steve Simon who argues that Minnesota should fix its redistricting system well before 2020 census kicks off new partisan battles over redistricting.

Missouri:

Montana:

  • Nov 12, 2021 – With Montana gaining one congressional seat from population growth, the state’s bipartisan Districting and Apportionment Commission adopted a new election map likely to give Montana Republicans an added seat in the House. The districting commission is composed of two Republicans, two Democrats and a tiebreaker chair appointed by the Montana Supreme Court. Because Republicans have held Montana’s single congressional seat for the past two decades, Democrats and election reform advocates urged the commission to create a politically competitive district in western Montana, with enough Democratic voters to give moderate candidates a better chance and to offer Montana’s diverse electorate more representative voices in Washington. One resident, urging the commission to create a level playing field, complained: “Politics in both our country and our state is full of divisiveness, anger, and outrage — and much of this is fueled by a lack of competitive Congressional seats, as politicians cater to the angry voices at the extreme fringes for fear of being ‘primaried out.’”
  • But ultimately, the tie-breaking chair Maylinn Smith sided with the commission’s two GOP members over Democratic opposition, and the three-member majority adopted the Republicans’ district map. An independent analysis by University of New Mexico political scientist Loren Collingwood, concluded that while Democrats have run well in this region,“Republican candidates are much more likely to win here and win easily.” Contrary to the commission’s stated goals of partisan equity, Collingwood concluded that the new district “unduly favors one party.”

Nebraska:

New Hampshire:

  • March 28, 2019 – New Hampshire Senate votes 14-10 in favor of legislation to create 15-member independent commission to draw maps for state congressional and  legislative district maps and to submit their plan to the state  legislature for final approval. It was a party-line vote in the senate, controlled by Democrats. The current election district maps were drawn in 2012 by the then Republican-controlled legislature. That plan was initially vetoed by  Democratic Gov. John Lynch but the Republican-led legislature overrode his veto. Advocates of the independent commission criticized the current system for putting lawmakers in charge of drawing their own election maps with boundaries to benefit the party in power. “Representatives and senators should not choose their voters, voters should choose their representatives,” said Sen. Shannon Chandley, D-Amherst.  Republicans, opposing the reform, argued that the state Constitution requires the legislature to set election districts and that the Legislature shouldn’t outsource its responsibilities to a commission.
  • Aug. 11, 2019 – Republican Gov. Chris Sununu vetoes bipartisan legislation to set up independent, nonpartisan commission to redraw the state’s congressional and legislative district maps in 2021 and beyond. Sununu said he was vetoing the bill to establish a 15-member commission-free of recent lobbyists and elected officials — to redraw district maps because it would create a commission of members who were “unelected and unaccountable to the voters.” Sununu added that the gerrymander reform measure was backed by out-of-state organizations that favor Democrats. “Legislators should not abrogate their responsibility to the voters and delegate authority to an unelected and unaccountable commission selected by political party bosses,” Sununu said. Reform advocates suggest that Sununu’s veto could backfire against New Hampshire Republicans, who are now the minority party in the state legislature, and Sununu who is up for re-election in 2020. “With his veto, the governor is throwing out a plan that would ensure Republicans are treated fairly in the next round of redistricting even if Democrats do well in next year’s elections,” said Yurij Rudensky of New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice.

 

New Jersey:

  • Nov. 1995 – New Jersey voters approve an amendment to the New Jersey Constitution to create the 13-member bipartisan New Jersey Redistricting Commission. To maintain a balance between the two parties, the majority and minority leaders of both houses of the state legislature and the heads of the two major political practices each appoint two commissioners. These twelve commissioners elect the 13th member but if unable to do so, as often happens, the chief justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court picks the 13th member. In practice, these have been professors from Rutgers and Princeton universities. The outcome in recent congressional elections has been a tie – 6 Democrats and 6 Republicans
  • State legislative lines are drawn by a similar 11-member Apportionment Commission, in place since 1966. The chairs of the state’s two major political parties each choose five commissioners, and in practice, the 11th tie-breaker member has been chosen by the New Jersey Supreme court. The result has been the election of a state legislature with a 3-2 advantage for Democrats, roughly reflecting the partisan alignment of voters- 33% Democrats, 20% Republicans, and 47% independents
  • Dec 1, 2018 – In the name of gerrymander reform but opposed by reform groups, Democratic legislative leaders push a plan that would ensure Democratic control of the state legislature for the next decade, by the way election districts are mapped. The pivotal change is that the new plan would require the state’s election map-making commission to be guided by past election results when they redraw New Jersey’s 40 state legislative districts. That reverses present practice that deliberately ignores past election results, which favor Democrats. If this new Democratic proposal is passed twice by the legislature and then approved next year by the voters, it would essentially guarantee Democratic Party advantage in the legislature from the next redistricting in 2021 and for the next decade. The plan quickly drew heavy flak not only from Republicans but from Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, good government groups like the League of Women Voters, and national Democratic figures who called it “a major step in the wrong direction.”
  • Dec 17, 2018- Democratic legislative leaders, widely accused of bucking the national trend against partisan gerrymandering, abruptly canceled a scheduled vote on their own redistricting plan that would have entrenched Democratic power in the state legislature for a decade. Embarrassed by the visceral rejection of partisan gerrymandering by their political allies and their own voter base, Senate President Stephen Sweeney and other leaders were forced to spike their own plan which had partisan advantages for Democrats.. “There’s something in this bill to affront almost everybody,” admitted Loretta Weinberg, No. 2 Democrat in the state senate. “That’s not always easy to do. But apparently, that’s what we managed to do.”

New Mexico:

  • March 2012- Santa Fe voters pass a charter amendment to create an Independent Citizens’ Redistricting Commission to draw maps for Santa Fe City Council districts. Previously, the City Council members drew their own districts, a practiced attacked as a political conflict of interest by reform advocates such as Common Cause. The new seven-member redistricting commission, to be appointed by the city clerk’s office, will be comprised of local residents who will hear input from local communities and work with residents to draw new district lines.

New York:

North Carolina:

Ohio:

  • Dec. 4, 2014 – Ohio House of Representatives, by 80-4 bipartisan vote, passes proposal for new bipartisan panel to take over legislative redistricting from state’s General Assembly. With one of most gerrymandered systems in the U.S., Ohio voters saw Republicans snag 62 of 99 state house seats in 2011 even though Democratic legislative candidates won 51% of the popular vote, thanks to district maps drawn by the GOP-dominated legislature. The proposed seven-member commission would include governor, secretary of state, and state auditor plus four other commissioners, two named by majority and two by minority leaders in legislature. For redistricting plan to be effective for a decade, it would need approval of at least two members from each party; otherwise, it would apply for only four years and need to be redrawn. Usually the top state offices are held by same party, which often controls legislature, too. Currently, for example, the commission would have 5 Republicans and 2 Democrats. Although Ohio has had Democratic governors in recent years, Republicans have won governor’s office and control of legislature after each of last three censuses, in 1990, 2000, and 2010, thereby controlling redistricting process for both Congress and legislature.
  • Dec 12, 2014 – Ohio Senate adopts plan to amend the Ohio constitution to turn over legislative redistricting to a seven-member panel of politicians. The measure now goes to Ohio voters in the November 2015 election. This measure does not alter current procedure for congressional redistricting, now done by a five-member panel, subject to legislative approval. Historically, the panel has stacked districts in favor of incumbents. Critics charge that process cheats voters out of a genuine choice in elections. “In our current winner-take-all system, the voters lose, because the results are predetermined by the district map-makers,” said Catherine Turcer of Common Cause Ohio.
  • Nov. 3, 2015 – In a ground breaking referendum, a whopping 71% majority of Ohio voters approve the proposed constitutional amendment to create a seven-member bipartisan political commission to conduct remapping of state legislative districts. Reform activists immediately set their sights on their next target – reforming the mapping of Ohio’s 16 congressional districts. “Today’s win was an important first step, but it only got us half way there,” says Carrie Davis, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio. “We need to take these new anti-gerrymandering rules…to the General Assembly and extend them to congressional districts, which are even more gerrymandered.”
  • April 6, 2016 – In his major annual address to legislature, Gov. John Kasich calls for reform of partisan gerrymandering of Ohio’s congressional districts, citing reform of legislative redistricting as a sound precedent. “Ideas and merits should be what wins elections, not gerrymandering,” Kasich declares to resounding applause. “When pure politics is what drives these kinds of decisions, the result is polarization and division. I think we’ve had enough of that. Gerrymandering needs to be on the dust bin of history.” But Kasich does not propose or endorse any specific reform plan. Bills introduced in Ohio legislature in 2015 remain buried in committees. Ohio’ s Constitutional Modernization Commission considers developing a reform proposal but action there is also stalled.
Ohio Congressional Districts since 2012 elections.

Ohio Congressional Districts since 2012 elections. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

  • May 30,2017 – Ohio Ballot Board approves gerrymander reform initiative from Fair Districts Ohio seeking popular vote in 2018 on proposal to take congressional redistricting out of hands of state legislature and turn it over to seven-member bipartisan commission. To promote bipartisan fairness, any plan would require at least two votes form minority party members. the overall proportion of Republican- and Democratic-leaning districts would have to reflect party preference of voters over previous ten years, and map-makers could not split a county more than once.
  • Dec. 20, 2017 – Ohio’s citizen movement pushing for popular vote on gerrymander reform in 2018 election passes half-way mark. Fair Districts Ohio reports gathering 188,000 signatures out of 305,591 valid signatures need to qualify reform measure for 2018 election ballot. This measure calls for reform in drawing maps of congressional districts. At present, in a state with a fairly even statewide balance of Republicans and Democrats, the GOP has a lopsided 12-4 advantage in House seats. In 2015, a similar reform covering legislative redistricting passed by 72% popular vote. With hundreds of volunteers fanning out among state’s 88 counties, Catherine Turcer of Common Cause Ohio, says, “We are well on our way to collecting the needed signatures to place Fair Districts on next year’s ballot.”
  • Feb 6, 2018- Under pressure from the Fair Districts Ohio citizen reform movement, Ohio legislature hurriedly passes gerrymander reform plan for remapping state’s congressional districts after 2020 census. In place of current system, run by Republican majorities in state legislature and giving GOP lopsided 12-4 advantage in House seats, the new plan would require that the next round of mapping win bipartisan approval from three-fifths of majority party and one-half of lawmakers from minority party. IF they cannot agree, redistricting would be turned over to seven-member commission with at least two members from minority party whose support would be required for commission majority to adopt a plan. After months of gridlock in legislature, this formula was hammered out by small bipartisan group at five-hour session on Super Bowl Sunday. The message, says Senate President Larry Obhof, is: “Get along with your colleagues. Cooperate across party lines, and if you try to cram down a strictly partisan map, you aren’t going to be able to do it.” To take effect, this plan must be approved by state’s voters in referendum in May.
  • May 8, 2018 – By a solid 3-1 super-majority Ohio voters give sweeping approval to a gerrymander reform plan that would take away the power of one party to rig congressional elections by drawing district maps in its own favor. The plan approved today was hurriedly devised three months ago by a bipartisan group of state legislators, under pressure from a citizens reform movement – Fair Districts Ohio – which mounted a petition drive in 2017 for a ballot measure that would take election redistricting completely out of the hands of the state legislature. Lawmakers came up with an alternative plan to keep control of redistricting but require support for redistricting maps from at least half of the minority party legislators as well as 60% of the majority party, to make sure that one party cannot dictate election maps for its own advantage. Under the current Republican-drafted gerrymander of 2011, the GOP enjoys a lopsided 12-4 majority in House seats. As a result of today’s vote, this old arrangement will be replaced by the new plan during the next redistricting period in 2021. By registration, 59% of Ohio voters are independents, 25% are Republicans and 16% are Democrats. In presidential elections, Ohio has a long history as a swing state, almost always casting a majority for the ultimate winner, regardless of party.The GOP domination of House seats triggered the push for gerrymander reform by the Ohio League of Women Voters, Common Cause and other civic organizations, which united to form Fair Districts Ohio. Pressing for a popular referendum in November 2018, Fair Districts Ohio collected 188,000 signatures to put gerrymander reform on the ballot. But Legislative leaders, fearing a humiliating rebuff by voters, quickly devised a more modest plan and rushed it onto today’s primary ballot to head off even more sweeping reform.
  • May 3, 2019- Three-judge federal court panel, becoming fifth court in nation to outlaw extreme partisan gerrymandering of election districts,  tosses out Ohio’s congressional maps, ruling that GOP lawmakers drew that maps to give their own party an illegal advantage and a 12-4 tilt in the almost evenly divided state’s congressional delegation. Judges order new maps to be redrawn by June 14 in time to be used for 2020 election, but case is likely to go to Supreme Court for review. Ohio case follows decisions by four other federal courts striking down partisan gerrymandering in Wisconsin, North Carolina, Maryland and last week, in Michigan.GOP reps at trial argued that maps were drawn to protect incumbents of both parties, and that was not illegal. Three judges, two of whom were appointed by Dem presidents and one by a Republican president, disagreed. In sharply worded, unanimous opinion, judges wrote that Ohio Republicans, supervised by national GOP mapmaking experts, operated with “invidious partisan intent” to pack Ohio’s Democratic voters into as few districts as possible and to carve up Democratic-leaning cities and counties so that ” the electoral outcome is predetermined”in favor of the Republican Party.
  • Sept 9, 2021 – The 5-2 Republican majority on the commission charged with redrawing maps of Ohio’s congressional districts voted along party lines today to endorse a proposed GOP map, in defiance of two constitutional amendments passed by Ohio voters  aimed at requiring bipartisan compromise on election redistricting. Two Democratic members objected and one Republican commissioner, Secretary of State Frank LaRose voiced dissatisfaction with the GOP map even though he voted for it. “I think it needs substantial work,” he said. LaRose and GOP state Auditor Keith Faber, another commission member, pledged to work with Democrats for bipartisan compromise. Under constitutional amendments adopted by Ohio voters in 2015 and 2018 and intended to stop one party from dictating election district maps,  a majority vote including the two Democratic members is required to adopt district maps for the next decade. If that fails, a simple majority, without Democrats, can endorse maps for the next four years. Republican lawmakers on the commission have incentives to resist compromise because if the commission fails, the issue moves to the legislature where Republicans hold super majorities in both chambers, 64-35 in the house and 25-8 in the senate.
  • Sent 29,2021 – Charging that the Ohio redistricting commission’s proposed congressional maps for the next decade  “flagrantly violate numerous rights guaranteed by the Ohio Constitution,” the Brennan Center of New York University law school and several citizen organizations file suit asking Ohio courts to require the plan to conform with election reforms adopted by Ohio voters in 2015 and 2018. Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center, charges the commission’s 5-2 GOP majority with ignoring the Ohio constitution’s safeguards against partisan gerrymandering. “What makes this act of partisan gerrymandering so egregious,” Waldman writes, “is the sheer antidemocratic chutzpah of the state’s redistricting commission.”
  • Jan 12, 2022- Ohio Supreme Court strikes down Republican redistricting map for state legislative election districts, ruling that it was an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander and ordering new district be drawn quickly by a panel of elected officials in time for Ohio’s May party primaries. Court’s 4-3 majority rules that Ohio Redistricting Commission, with a 5-2 Republican majority, violated state constitution’s safeguards against partisan gerrymandering – specifically section 6 that requires districts be drawn to correspond roughly with the pattern of statewide voter preferences over the previous decade. The court noted that “All parties agreed that in statewide partisan elections over the past decade, Republican candidates had won 54 percent of the vote share and Democratic candidates had won 46 percent of the vote share.” Instead, the court found that the commission’s maps favored Republicans by 67-32 in House districts and 23-10 in senate districts. Republican Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor joined three Democratic justices in rejecting the GOP plan.
  • Jan 14, 2022- In second case, Ohio Supreme Court rejects Republican gerrymander of state’s 15 congressional districts, ruling that it violates the state constitution’s safeguards against partisan bias by crafting maps to give Republicans a 12-3 or 13-2 tilt in House seats.  Comparing the GOP’s map-making to a gambling house dealer stacking a deck of cards, the court’s 4-3 majority ordered the GOP-controlled state Legislature to draw a new map that “is not dictated by partisan considerations” in the next 30 days. Writing for the majority,  Justice Michael Donnelly threw out the Republican redistricting plan with the scathing observation that “When the dealer stacks the deck in advance, the house usually wins. That perhaps explains how a party that generally musters no more than 55 percent of the statewide popular vote is positioned to reliably win anywhere from 75 percent to 80 percent of the seats in the Ohio congressional delegation. By any rational measure, that skewed result just does not add up.”  Ohio ruling marks Democrats’ first major legal victory of the current redistricting cycle and the new democratic strategy of taking gerrymander challenges to state courts after U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that partisan gerrymandering cases were beyond the purview of federal courts.
  • March 29, 2022- Ohio Supreme Court indicates it won’t have enough time to rule on legality of Republican-drawn congressional before the May 3 primary, crushing Democrats’ hopes for more fairly drawn maps for the 2022 election cycle. In January, the state’s highest court struck down Republicans’ initial plan for Ohio’s 15 congressional districts, asserting that the GOP maps violate a constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2018 to ban partisan gerrymandering. The high court has rejected two subsequent Republican recrafts as still unfair. But through delay, Republicans may succeed in imposing their gerrymandered maps on voters. “Because the same district boundaries must be used for both the primary and general elections, it is too late for this court to enter any order that would affect the 2022 election cycle,” state Supreme Court Justices DeWine, Sharon Kennedy and Pat Fischer wrote this week. In dismay, former state Democratic Chair David Pepper urged the court to re4verse its stand. “Having 15 politicians go to Congress on a map everyone knows is unconstitutional is truly lawless,” Pepper declared. “If it’s not constitutional it’s not legitimate … the people of Ohio deserve to have members of Congress elected in constitutional districts.”

Oregon:

Pennsylvania:

South Carolina:

  • Jan 25, 2020 –  South Carolina Republican Gov. Henry McMaster signs into law redistricting plan that strengthens Republican hold on six of the state’s seven congressional seats, leaving only one Democratic-leaning district currently held by veteran Rep. James Clyburn. Republican legislators who authored and enacted the plan defended it on grounds that the redrawn congressional map resembles the current map, which was precleared a decade ago by the U.S. Department of Justice. But Dave’s Redistricting, a popular map drawing and analysis tool, ranks the new map slightly worse than the current one and gives a poor rating to the GOP maps for both congressional and legislative districts. Non-partisan groups have sharply criticized the new maps as racial gerrymanders, especially around Charleston, that ensure non-competitive races for Republican incumbents. Lynn Teague with the League of Women Voters of South Carolina, condemned the new plan as a “distorted map made worse.” Democratic State Sen. Dick Harpootlian, whose alternative map proposal was blocked by Republicans, derided the new maps as “the most racially divisive plan” one could design, based on an old map plan that “was a Frankenstein monster.”

South Dakota:

Tennessee:

Texas:

Utah:

 

Virginia:

  • March 22, 2011- To encourage fair, nonpartisan redistricting, Virginia colleges and universities run a competition for 55 student teams to draw maps for the state’s congressional and legislative districts. The winning map from the University of Virginia meets legal requirements for compact, contiguous districts generally adhering to boundaries of cities and counties, and it also produces election outcomes that reflect the popular strength of the two major parties. With Virginia voters splitting 42% for Republicans, 40% for Democrats and 18% independents, UVA team’s plan produces a 6-5 split favoring Republicans. It also makes 6 of Virginia’s 11 districts competitive, giving greater choice to voters. The UVA team contends that its plan is a significant improvement over the gerrymandered plan drawn by the state legislature in 2001, “thereby demonstrating that it is not only possible but preferable to draw U.S. House districts in a fair and non-partisan manner.”

Washington State:

  • Nov. 8, 1983 – By a 61% majority, Washington state voters approve a ballot measure to amend the state Constitution instituting an independent redistricting commission, with two members each from the major parties and a non-voting, nonpartisan chair.
  • Nov. 4, 2004 – Majority of voters in Washington State approve Initiative 872 adopting a Top-Two Primary election system, and after the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the Top-Two Primary in March 2008, Washington State voters use this system for the first time in 2008. Its purpose is not to select party nominees, but to identify the top-two vote-getters, regardless of party. Under the Top-Two system, all candidates are listed together on a single nonpartisan ballot, and two candidates who receive the most votes proceed to the general election, even if they come from same party or include a third-party candidate.
  • Top-Two system differs from a closed primary, which restricts participation in the primary to registered party members; and from an open primary, which is open to all voters, independents as well as party members, but which requires voters to choose one party or the other and then only allows them to vote for candidates form that party. The Top-Two system permits voters to split their ticket, voting for candidates of different parties for different posts. This system goes the furthest in minimizing the influence of political parties because parties not only lack control over which voters participate in the primary, but also which candidates are listed on the ballot. (National Conference of State Legislatures 2014).
  • Nov. 2, 2010 – Under Washington State’s new Top-Two Primary system, voter turnout rises an average of 8% from turnout in congressional races in previous mid-term election in 2006, lending support to contention that Top-Two system encourages more voters by including political independents and minority party voters, who are shut out of closed party primaries.
  • Feb. 7, 2012- Washington state legislature passes a “slightly amended” version of the redistricting plan drawn up by the state’s independent redistricting commission. The 2012 plan is important because Washington State has gained an additional Congressional seat. In a state where registered Democratic voters outnumber Republicans by 45% to 37% (independents and small parties are 18%), the new district maps result in Democrats’ picking up one more seat, to enjoy a 6-4 advantage in the state’s delegation to the House of Representatives.
  • Nov. 6, 2012 and Nov 4, 2014 – In 2012 election, moderate Democrat Susan DelBene beats out more liberal Democrats in district 1,with her centrist appeal. In 2014 election, moderate Republican Dan Newhouse runs second to a Tea Party conservative in the primary, but qualifies for the general election and then wins the seat in district 4. These two case demonstrate how more moderate candidates fare better in Top-Two Primary system.
  • Nov. 16, 2021 – Washington state’s bipartisan redistricting commission fails to agree on new maps for the state’s congressional and legislative district before its mandatory Nov 15 deadline, throwing the issue to the state’s supreme court, which has until April 30 to finalize election maps for 2022 and beyond. The commission is composed of two Democrats and two Republicans with a non-partisan, non-voting chair.  For the state’s 10-member congressional delegation, the two Democrats proposed maps likely send seven Democrats  and three Republicans to the House, a gain of one seat for Democrats. The Republican side proposed maps giving Democrats five safe seats to four for Republicans plus one highly competitive seat. Meeting for five hours through last night, a commission majority agreed on a map yielding six Democratic seats, three Republican seats and one toss-up district. While the commission’s compromise plan came too late to meet its legal deadline, the commission urged the state supreme court to seriously consider its final compromise map.

Wisconsin:

  • Aug. 9, 2011 – Gov. Scott Walker signs partisan redistricting plan drafted in secret by Republican legislature, moving hastily to get Republican plans cast into law before state Senate recall elections could upset GOP majority. Wisconsin had been targeted by REDMAP, national GOP redistricting strategy to gain control of state governments in swing states. In 2010, Wisconsin Republicans win governorship and majorities in both legislative houses and then pounce on the opportunity to dominate redistricting in Wisconsin. They move stealthily. They not only have private law firms draw up new district boundaries behind closed doors but make GOP legislators sign secrecy oaths before they can view their own redrawn districts. The new maps bring immediate lawsuits, as well as pointed rebukes from judges protesting the law firms’ frivolous motions and withholding of evidence. One suit decries the disenfranchisement of more than 300,000 voters who would have to wait six years to vote for their state senator instead of the usual four years. Another suit charges that the plan dilutes Latino voting power.
  • March 22, 2012 – A panel of three judges rules unanimously that the 2011 redistricting plan drawn by Republican legislators violates the voting rights of Latinos in Milwaukee’s south side and orders that lines be redrawn for two state assembly districts, Districts #8 and #9. The judges, two appointed by Republican presidents and one appointed by a Democrat, assert that the maps were clearly motivated by partisanship and do not match the almost-even voter registration of Republicans and Democrats in Wisconsin. “Regrettably, like many other states, Wisconsin chose a sharply partisan methodology that has cost the state in dollars ($2.1 million), time and civility,” the court writes. It says the GOP plan “was needlessly secret, regrettably excluding input from the overwhelming majority of Wisconsin citizens, and … needlessly moved more than a million Wisconsinites and disrupted their long-standing political relationships…”
  • April 11, 2012 – The three-judge federal panel revises the district boundaries of two Milwaukee area legislative districts to remedy defects that the court had cited earlier. Otherwise, it allows the Republican redistricting plan to stand.
  • Nov. 2012 – Republican REDMAP gerrymandering strategy pays off big-time for Republicans. Even though Democratic candidates won more votes in House races (50.3% to 49%), Republicans came away with five House seats to three for Democrats. Before the Republican gerrymandering of 2011, Democrats had a 5-3 edge in House seats. In the 2012 election, Wisconsin was one of four states where Republicans lost the popular vote but won more House seats. The others were Michigan, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.
  • April and May 2013 – Two bipartisan reform bills (AB 185 and SB 163) introduced in the Legislature, seek to strip the task of redistricting from politicians and give it to the Legislative Reference Bureau—emulating the system of neighboring Iowa, where nonpartisans taff agency does redistricting. The bills are supported by Common Cause in Wisconsin, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and a host of media outlets.
  • May 15, 2013 – Groups suing Wisconsin state in redistricting case find that lawfirm that advised Republican destroyed numerous documents and failed to turn over vital materials in case. Plaintiffs and law firm reach out-of-court settlement.
  • June 3, 2013 – Three federal judges scold Republicans for drawing election maps in secret and hint regulators may want to investigate why subpoenaed documents were withheld from groups that sued the state. “We cannot help but conclude that the people of Wisconsin deserve better in the next round of redistricting after the 2020 census,” the judges wrote.
  • April 8, 2014 – Legislation for setting up independent redistricting commission in Wisconsin is voted down by Republican-dominated legislature that engaged in heavily partisan gerrymander plan of 2011.
  • July 8, 2015 – Wisconsin Fair Elections Project, a bipartisan group co-chaired by former state Senate Majority Leaders, Republican Dale Schultz and Democrat Tim Cullen, and 12 voters file suit, charging that the 2011 Republican redistricting plan for state legislative districts violates their constitutional rights and constitutes one of the “worst partisan gerrymanders in modern American history.” The suit includes two expert reports asserting that the gerrymander in Wisconsin is extreme and far outside Constitutional norms, and proposes a clear standard for the courts. It asserts that in the 2012 election, the 2011 Republican redistricting plan enabled GOP candidates to win 60 of 99 seats in the state Assembly, even though Democratic candidates won a majority of the statewide Assembly vote.“This kind of partisan gerrymandering is both unconstitutional and profoundly undemocratic,” the lawsuit asserts. “It is unconstitutional because it treats voters unequally, diluting their voting power based on their political beliefs, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection, and because it unreasonably burdens their First Amendment rights of association and free speech.”
  • Dec. 17, 2015 – Three-judge federal court panel rejects Wisconsin attorney general’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit challenging partisan gerrymandering of state legislative districts by Republican-dominated legislature in 2011. Court sets hearing date in May 2016.
  • Nov. 21, 2016 – In a potentially precedent-setting decision, a three-judge federal district court rules that the Wisconsin legislature engaged in unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering intended to favor Republican candidates when it drew the lines for the state’s legislative districts in 2011. Typically, when federal courts have overturned state gerrymandering of congressional or legislative districts, they have ruled on the basis of unconstitutional racial bias against black or minority voters. But in this decision, a 2-1 court majority held that the 2011 redistricting by the Republican-dominated state legislature and GOP Gov. Scott Walker deprived Democratic voters of equal protection under the laws, as required by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. It ordered the governor and legislature to redraw legislative district maps by Nov 1, 2017, with the new maps to be used in the 2018 election cycle.
  • Heather Gerken, a Yale law professor who specializes in election law, told The New York Times that the Wisconsin decision was “a huge deal. For years, everyone has waited for the Supreme Court to render to do something on this front. Now, one of the lower courts has jump-started the debate.” The Wisconsin ruling can be appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.

  • In a move that could reshape American politics, the Supreme Court agrees to take on the issue of partisan gerrymandering.May 19, 2017 – In potentially game-changing case for American politics, the Supreme Court agrees to hear a Wisconsin case that challenges whether it is unconstitutional for political parties to manipulate election district maps for their own partisan advantage. In an unprecedented decision last fall in Wisconsin, a three-judge panel struck down the Republican legislature’s 2011 gerrymandering of the state’s congressional districts on grounds that it violated the First Amendment rights of Democratic voters and their right to equal protection under the laws. In states like Alabama, North Carolina, Texas and Virginia, the Supreme Court has invalidated gerrymandering when it has found that a state legislature discriminated against minority groups. But it has never ruled on the issue of partisan gerrymandering – on whether voters in the weaker party are being illegally denied equal rights of free speech and equal protection under the law. Justices have said they lack a clear legal standard that defines partisan gerrymandering.

    The Wisconsin case broke new ground on that crucial point. It was argued and decided largely on the basis of a mathematical formula, which examines whether electoral districts are competitive, thus giving voters true choice and where victory margins are narrow, or whether the majority party, drawing the maps, has packed excessive numbers of the opposite party into a few districts, where they win by large majorities, and thus “waste” votes, while the majority party sets itself up to win many more districts by slim margins. By this standard, an efficient or fair redistricting plan has relatively few wasted votes and a highly partisan gerrymandering has many more wasted votes. In examining four decades of state redistricting plans, the three-judge panel accepted the argument that if the margin of wasted votes between the parties was greater than 7%, that proved a partisan gerrymander. In Wisconsin, experts testified the ratio of wasted votes after the 2011 Wisconsin gerrymander ranged as high as 13%.

  • Oct. 3, 2017- In hearing Wisconsin lawsuit against the Republican gerrymander of 2011, the Supreme Court justices split almost evenly, with four liberal justices sounding sympathetic to voters and four conservative justices seeming to side with Wisconsin Republican state government. Justice Anthony Kennedy, the potential deciding vote, asked whether the First Amendment Rights of voters were endangered by partisan gerrymandering, with voters of the out-party being punished for their views by the party in power. At one point, Kennedy seemed to question the very basis of a partisan gerrymander, asking the state’s attorney whether it would be admissible for the state to pass a law authorizing partisan gerrymanders. With Democrats winning 52% of the popular vote but Republicans garnering 61% of the legislative seats, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked: “if you can stack a legislature in this way, what incentive is there for a voter to exercise his vote? Whether it’s a Democratic district or a Republican district, the result — using this map, the result is preordained in most of the districts. What becomes of the precious right to vote?”
  • Chief Justice John Roberts worried that if the court were to decide against the Wisconsin gerrymander, the high court would not only be inundated with cases from other states but would be seen by many Americans aa deciding the outcome of elections in place of voters. Paul Smith, attorney arguing for Democratic voters who filed the suit, responded that the court might protect its agenda but if the court rejected the voters’ case, it would be giving the green light to extreme partisan gerrymandering in the future. In 2020, he said, there would be “a festival of copycat partisan gerrymandering the likes of which this country has never seen.”
  • June 18, 2018 – The U.S. Supreme Court ducks the issue of partisan gerrymandering with the narrow ruling that a dozen Democratic voters in Wisconsin lacked legal standing to challenge the statewide redistricting plan adopted by the Republican-dominatred state legislature in 2011. In an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, the high court sends the case back to a federal district court to decide whether the Democratic plaintiffs could show how they had been harmed by the GOP plan, district by district. Because Republicans won 60% of seats in legislature with only 48% of popular vote, Democratic voters contended that their voters counted for less than Republican votes under OP redistricting plan.But Justice Roberts wrote that if in fact their voting power was diluted, it was a political injury specific to their individual legislative districts, which would not necessarily require redrawing district lines statewide. as the plaintiffs had requested. A federal district court will now decide whether the case can go forward once again.
  • Nov 11, 2021 – On party-line votes, the overwhelming Republican majority in the Wisconsin legislature adopts election maps for the next decade that entrench and strengthen the built-in partisan tilt that the GOP has enjoyed since 2011. An independent academic analysis found that the maps adopted in 2011, which the new maps largely replicate, have given the GOP a 10% to 15% bonus of extra seats above the Republican share of the popular vote. Nonetheless, Republican lawmakers rejected the politically more neutral “fairmaps” proposed by the People’s Commission on redistricting, composed largely of academic specialists on elections, appointed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. In a tweet today, Evers vowed to veto the Republican plan.  “Republicans’ new gerrymandered maps are modeled after the same gerrymandered ones we’ve had for a decade,” Evers tweeted. “I won’t sign them.’
  • Nov 18, 2021 – Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoes Republican gerrymander of Wisconsin’s election districts for the 2020s, sending the issue into the courts. “They’re gerrymandering 2.0,” Evers wryly quipped but Assembly Speaker Robin Vos contended that the GOP maps are legal —“They’re constitutional, they’re compact and contiguous. We follow all of the principles.” Anticipating Evers’s veto, Republican leaders had already filed an appeal to the Wisconsin state supreme court, where the conservative 4-3 majority has often sided with the legislature in its election law disputes with Governor Evers. Democrats filed suit in federal court but the federal panel said it would let Wisconsin state courts go first.
  • March 3, 2022 – A divided Wisconsin Supreme Court adopts “least change” legislative and congressional redistricting maps submitted by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, whose plan essentially affirms Republicans majorities – 5-3 in U.S. Congressional delegation and 55-44 advantage in state house of representatives. Evers’s maps tilted slightly less in of republicans than maps crafted by GOP legislative leaders. evers called them “a vast improvement from the gerrymandered maps Wisconsin has had for the last decade and the even more gerrymandered Republicans maps that I vetoed last year.”Evers‘s maps would elect 44 Democrats and 55 Republicans in the Assembly, and 13 Democrats and 20 Republicans in the Senate, according to governor’s office. Currently, Republicans hold a 61-38 majority in the Assembly and 21-12 advantage in Senate.
  • March 23, 20212-U.S. Supreme Court passively approves Wisconsin’s new congressional district maps drawn by Democratic Gov Tony Evers that would maintain current Republican 5-3 advantage in state’s congressional delegation.  But the high court tossed out state legislative maps drawn by Evers, sending the issue back to the state supreme court It said the Wisconsin court is  “free to take additional evidence if it prefers to reconsider the Governor’s maps….Any new analysis, however, must comply with our equal protection jurisprudence.”
    April 16, 2022- Wisconsin supreme court 4-3 majority approves Republican-drawn election maps for state’s legislative districts, reversing its earlier approval of maps drawn by Democratic Governor Tony Evers. The new maps lock in an overwhelming Republican majority in both legislative chambers, despite Democratic claims that they are out of proportion with statewide popular vote for legislature.
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