“A trove of documents recently released by the daughter of a deceased GOP strategist includes some clues about what Republicans were thinking almost a decade ago when they redrew Pennsylvania’s congressional maps in a way that was later ruled unconstitutional,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

“The documents, compiled at least partly amid the decennial redistricting that took place in 2011, include a warning that the party ‘got greedy’ in an attempt to create districts favorable to GOP candidates 10 years earlier.”

A cache of computer files saved on the hard drives of Thomas Hofeller, a prominent Republican redistricting strategist, was made public by his estranged daughter yesterday.

Politico: “With New York likely to lose at least one congressional seat, the district held by Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could be broken up, forcing her to find a new winning coalition. There’s little love for the disruptive young upstart in Albany, and many state lawmakers would like nothing more than to redraw her out of office. Ocasio-Cortez seems aware of the threat, as she’s been promoting Census sign-ups in her district to ensure that her constituents are fully counted.”

“New state population totals released Monday offer fresh signs of how southern and western states will gain political power after the 2020 census,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Based on Monday’s figures, Texas is poised to gain two congressional seats, and Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon are expected to gain one. Eight states are expected to lose one seat: California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia.”

The daughter of Thomas Hofeller, a top Republican gerrymandering expert, says she will upload a tranche of her estranged late father’s files by Monday.

Republicans had sought to keep these documents private in court.

Cook Political Report: “The new map effectively is all but certain to convert a 10-3 Republican delegation into an 8-5 Republican edge – a huge win for House Democrats and a pre-2020 insurance policy for Speaker Pelosi. The biggest losers on the GOP side: Reps. George Holding (NC-02) and Mark Walker (NC-06), whose Raleigh and Greensboro districts become safe Democratic seats.”

Cook Political Report: “Last Friday, North Carolina’s Republican-led legislature passed a new congressional map on a party line vote that would effectively convert the GOP’s current 10-3 seat advantage in the state to an 8-5 advantage (North Carolina’s governor doesn’t have veto power over redistricting plans). But it’s far from over: most strategists in both parties believe courts will draw their own map that could net Democrats even more seats.”

“North Carolina Democrats could gain two congressional seats under a redistricting proposal promoted by Republican legislative leaders Thursday — but some of them say it is not enough,” the Washington Post reports.

“The new map is one of nearly two dozen proposals offered in recent days by state lawmakers, who began redrawing the lines of the state’s 13 congressional districts after a state court ruled earlier this month that the GOP illegally gerrymandered the lines for partisan gain.”

“North Carolina’s 2020 congressional elections must happen under new maps, a panel of judges ruled Monday evening, saying that the current Republican-drawn maps are unfair to many voters,” the Raleigh News and Observer reports.

“The legislature must now redraw the state’s 13 U.S. House districts. The judge — two Democrats and one Republican from different parts of North Carolina — wrote that the maps show signs of ‘extreme partisan gerrymandering’ which ‘is contrary to the fundamental right of North Carolina citizens to have elections conducted freely and honestly to ascertain, fairly and truthfully, the will of the people.'”

“Monday’s ruling, a preliminary injunction, said the state may not hold any elections for Congress using the current maps passed in 2016.”

“The reach of late Republican gerrymandering mastermind Thomas Hofeller may be longer than previously known,” The Intercept reports.

“While Hofeller was known for drawing maps to give Republicans an advantage and to limit the impact of voters of color in North Carolina, Texas, Missouri, and Virginia, the new documents reveal he also participated in the 2010 redistricting cycle in Alabama, Florida, and West Virginia.”

Politico: “Democrats were caught napping before the last round of redistricting in 2010 — and it cost them control of Congress for nearly a decade. Now Republicans are warning the same thing could happen to them.”

“Senior Republicans concede they’re at risk of losing dozens of state-level elections that will determine who wields power over the post-2020 congressional map — and potentially which party controls the chamber for the following 10 years. While Republicans are establishing a massive national infrastructure devoted to reelecting President Donald Trump and winning congressional majorities, party officials say the state legislative races are being overlooked.”

State judges ruled that North Carolina’s political maps for the state legislature are unconstitutional and must be redrawn before the 2020 elections, the Raleigh News & Observer reports.

Rick Hasen: “This is a huge development that will put the Republican-led North Carolina General Assembly in a tough position. Because this is decided as a matter of state constitutional law, it would be very hard to find a federal issue to take this to the United States Supreme Court for reversal.”

The Week: “The creator of the Ugly Gerry typeface doesn’t identify themself on the Ugly Gerry website or Twitter feed. But they did blatantly call out the congressmembers representing those districts in tweets of each letter, and call on readers to ‘use the font to tell Congress how happy you are that your vote doesn’t matter.'”

“The Trump administration has few realistic options to get a citizenship question onto next year’s census, but by keeping the issue in the public eye it could still trigger an undercount of residents in Democratic-leaning areas,” Reuters reports.

“Constant media coverage linking citizenship and census forms could scare undocumented immigrants away from responding and rally U.S. President Donald Trump’s base to participate, they said. That, in turn, would help redraw voting districts across the country in favor of his Republican party, encouraging the president to pursue a legal battle that he has little chance of winning.”

Washington Post: The Trump administration has changed its story on the census citizenship question at least 10 times in four months.