Category: Redistricting

Michigan Supreme Court Approves Redistricting Ballot Measure

Michigan voters will determine whether or not to create an independent redistricting commission this November, after a 4-3 state supreme court ruling allowed the measure to appear on the ballot.  The majority ruling, by Democrat-nominated justices Richard Bernstein and Bridget McCormack joined by Republican-nominated justices David Viviano and Elizabeth Clement, allowed the measure under the condition that “if it proposes changes that do not significantly alter or abolish the form or structure of the government in a manner equivalent to creating a new constitution.”

According to MLive, “The court’s majority decision concurred with a unanimous decision from the state Court of Appeals, which compelled the Michigan Board of State Canvassers to place the Voters not Politicians measure on the ballot after determining the initiative passed constitutional muster.”

If approved, Proposal 2 would amend Michigan’s constitution to create a 13-member Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission made up of five independents, four Republicans and four Democrats, with conditions on who can serve on the commission in order to separate it from the political process.  The commission would be in place in time for the next redistricting following the 2020 census.

The anti-gerrymandering proposal was created by Voters Not Politicians, a statewide organization that collected more than 427,000 signatures from Michigan voters. Redistricting has been controlled by Republicans since the last census in 2011. The proposal had been opposed by the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the Michigan Republican Party, and Attorney General and likely Republican gubernatorial nominee Bill Schuette.

“The court’s decision upholds our right as citizens to petition our government for positive change,” VNP founder and executive director Katie Fahey said in a statement. “Michigan voters are ready for a transparent redistricting process, where election district lines represent the people – not special interests. It’s time voters choose their politicians, not the other way around.”

National Democratic Redistricting Committee chairman Eric Holder tweeted, “This is a big win. Citizens will choose their representatives, politicians will not pick their voters – if the ballot measure is passed.”

There may be some political fallout for Justice Clement, who is on the ballot for re-election this year and could lose funding or support from the state’s Republican Party, according to the Detroit Free Press.  According to the paper, Clement – who had previously served as Gov. Rick Snyder’s chief legal counsel – had no prior judicial experience or judicial record prior to her appointment to the Michigan Supreme Court.

Federal Court Strikes Down Racially Drawn Texas Congressional Maps

The Republican-controlled Texas state legislature racially gerrymandered a handful of congressional districts in order to diminish the electoral influence of the state’s minority populations, according to a San Antonio federal court ruling issued late on Friday night.  The two-judge majority wrote in their opinion, “This Court finds that map drawers acted with an impermissible intent to dilute minority voting strength or otherwise violated the Fourteenth Amendment and that Plaintiffs are still being harmed by the lines drawn as the direct product of these violations.” The ruling was the culmination of a long redistricting case pitting state Democrats, minority groups, and the Obama Justice Department against the Texas Republican leadership and legislature over the course of six years.

A potential consequence of this ruling is whether the state of Texas will once again have to seek federal approval before changing voting laws, a practice known as preclearance. The practice applied to Texas and several other Southern states with a history of racial discrimination, though that changed as a consequence of the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder. The state is likely to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.

The new ruling mentions the 23rd, 26th, 27th and 35th congressional districts.  The 23rd district covers much of West Texas and the Mexican border across to San Antonio, and is currently represented by Rep. Will Hurd. The 26th district covers a suburban area north of Dallas/Fort Worth and is represented by Rep. Michael Burgess. The 27th district covers part of the Texas coast on the Gulf of Mexico, as well as the outskirts to the southwest of the capital city of Austin, and is currently represented by Rep. Blake Farenthold. The 35th district covers a stretch between San Antonio and Austin, and is represented by Rep. Lou Doggett.  Doggett is the only Democrat representing the four districts named in the ruling.  Hurd has been identified by both parties as one of the most vulnerable Republican incumbents in the 2018 election. He narrowly won a rematch with his Democratic predecessor by one point, in a district with a 68 percent Hispanic population that Hillary Clinton won by 3 in the presidential election. The court ordered the Texas legislature to redraw lines for the 23rd, 27th and 35th districts.

This is the latest in a series of legal rulings against congressional redistricting in the aftermath of the 2010 census.  Other courts have ruled against Republican gerrymandered maps in Alabama, North Carolina, Virginia and Wisconsin.

“This Texas ruling is another major legal victory for fairer maps in America,” National Democratic Redistricting Committee General Counsel Marc Elias said in a statement. “Yet again, courts have sent a clear message that unconstitutional racial gerrymandering and violations of the Voting Rights Act will not stand in the United States of America. The National Democratic Redistricting Committee will act quickly on a proactive legal strategy that will build upon these recent victories.”

Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee Executive Director Jessica Post said, “Texas Republicans illegally diluted the voices of Hispanic voters, and this ruling is an important step towards giving all Texans fair representation.”

“The Texas congressional map engineered by Republican legislators diminished the voices of specific groups of voters just to protect GOP power. This court decision, along with recent rulings in Virginia, Alabama, and Wisconsin, mark important progress in the fight to protect and enfranchise all voters and are blows against the artificial Republican majorities the GOP created at minority voters’ expense.”

“The federal court further confirmed what we’ve known all along:  Texas intentionally discriminated to disenfranchise Latino and African American voters.  This is unacceptable and that is why I led the effort at the Justice Department to challenge these maps.  But our work here is far from over,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez said in a statement.

“Republicans have ensured that the dark days of discrimination in Texas continue to loom, but the sun will soon shine. In time, justice prevails,” Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said.

No statements on the court ruling have been released by the Republican Legislative Campaign Committee, the Republican National Committee, or the Texas Republican Party.

UPDATE: Read this analysis of the case from Election Law Blog’s Rick Hasen. He calls the ruling “a major victory for voting rights plaintiffs,” and notes there is a real question of whether or not Texas will be subject to Section 5 preclearance for as long as ten years.

Supreme Court Orders Review of Virginia House Districts for Racial Gerrymandering

The Supreme Court ruled 7-1 that the Eastern District Court of Virginia used “an incorrect legal standard to determine that race did not predominate” in 11 of the 12 Virginia House of Delegates districts in the case in the aftermath of the 2010 census.  Voters in those redrawn districts filed suit arguing that the new districts violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.  The case – Bethune Hill v. Virginia State Board of Elections – was remanded back to the Eastern District Court of Virginia “for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

The decision comes eight months before gubernatorial and legislative races in Virginia. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, “Anti-gerrymandering advocates hailed the ruling as a victory for efforts to produce a more competitive political map, though the Supreme Court chose to leave it to a U.S. District Court to rehear the case, applying a different legal standard.”

Democratic election attorney Marc Elias, who represented the plaintiffs in the case, took to Twitter to call the decision a “major redistricting victory… Big win against GOP racial gerrymandering.”

Read more details about the case from SCOTUSblog.

UPDATE: Here’s a sampling of reactions to the court decision.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez:

“Voters should choose their elected leaders – not the other way around. But for years, Virginia Republicans have schemed to change the state’s legislative districts to rig elections in their favor. But efforts to combat these extreme partisan tactics are succeeding at every level. The Supreme Court’s decision this morning and a  key state court decision yesterday have put us firmly on the path to ensuring Republican gerrymandering efforts will fail. We must continue to fight back against discriminatory efforts to block access to the ballot box and that is why I have vowed to create a fully staffed Voter Empowerment and Protection Office so that we can ensure that disenfranchisement through gerrymandering becomes a thing of the past.”

Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee Executive Director Jessica Post:

“Virginia Republicans illegally silenced the voices of African-American voters, and today’s ruling is a step towards giving all Virginians fair representation in their government,” said Post. “The district maps engineered by Republican legislators diminished the voices of specific groups of voters just to protect GOP power. This court decision, along with recent rulings in Alabama and Wisconsin, mark important progress in the fight to enfranchise voters and dismantle artificial Republican majorities, and these decisions serve as incontrovertible evidence that Republicans can’t be trusted to protect voters’ rights in the next round of redistricting. DLCC continues our fight to elect more Democratic lawmakers to dislodge map-drawing pens from the grip of the GOP.”

Virginia House Democratic Leader David Toscano and Caucus Chair Charniele Herring:

“Virginia is one of the most gerrymandered states in the nation, and we applaud the court’s decision as a critical step toward correcting a system that is rigged. Voters should choose their representatives, but in Virginia, it’s the other way around. Seventy-four percent of Virginians support giving control of redistricting to an independent commission, and we saw unprecedented public demand during the last legislative session for meaningful reform. We look forward to the continued progression of this case, and we renew our commitment to ending gerrymandering in Virginia.”

There are no public statements from the Republican National Committee, the Republican Party of Virginia, or the Virginia House Republican Caucus as of this writing. Any comment or statement they make will be added in a future update.

UPDATE II: Marc Elias points out this Election Law Blog analysis of the ruling by Richard Pildes:

As someone who litigates these cases and has written extensively about racial redistricting, I consider today’s decision a major new precedent with broad implications, not just for racial gerrymandering issues, but for partisan gerrymandering ones potentially as well.

On racial gerrymandering and the Constitution, the Court’s opinion today is more forceful and clear than it has ever been that unconstitutional racial gerrymandering can occur even when a State draws districts that look regular and follow traditional districting principles.

This principle is going to make it significantly easier for plaintiffs to win racial gerrymandering claims.

UPDATE III: Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe sent a letter to Virginia House and Senate Majority Leaders asking them to work with him to draw new district lines so that they can be in place in time for the fall elections. Here’s the key graphs:

This ruling sets the stage for protracted litigation at taxpayer-expense and further delay that will cast a shadow over our upcoming legislative elections — unless we find a more productive path forward. So today, I write to ask you and the House Republican Caucus to drop your defense of Virginia’s gerrymandered map and work with me on the nonpartisan redistricting plan our Commonwealth deserves.

To accomplish this, I ask that you agree to settle this litigation in a way that empowers the General Assembly to redraw the eleven House of Delegates districts that have been sent back to the District Court. Once that settlement is finalized, I am prepared to call a special session in order to pass new lines that have been prepared by an independent, nonpartisan panel. If we act quickly, we can finalize a new map before the 2017 legislative elections and prevent Virginians from voting yet again in unconstitutional gerrymandered districts.

For too long, the redistricting process has been defined by partisanship, racial politics, and costly litigation. Today we have the opportunity to reverse that history and put our Commonwealth on the right side of one of the most important issues of our time. I hope you will consider this request and join me in a nonpartisan process to strengthen democracy in Virginia.