“The Supreme Court this week takes up the most consequential Trump administration initiative since last term’s travel ban, with the justices considering whether a question about citizenship can be added to the 2020 Census,” the Washington Post reports.
“The time frame for a decision will be tight, as the Census Bureau must know by the end of June whether the question may be included on the 2020 form. Arguments are scheduled for Tuesday.”
The next round of redistricting after the 2020 U.S. Census will change the size of many congressional delegations and ultimately result in a new 2024 electoral map.
“The Census Bureau said Monday that it has prepared two versions of the paper and electronic survey for next year: one including the citizenship question and one without it,” CNN reports.
“The government is awaiting a Supreme Court ruling expected in early summer on the validity of the controversial question. Two federal judges have ruled the citizenship question must be removed from the 2020 census and chastised Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross for adding it improperly.”
“The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared divided along ideological lines again on whether the contentious practice of manipulating electoral district boundaries to entrench one party in power may violate the constitutional rights of voters, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh emerging as the potential deciding vote,” Reuters reports.
“More than two hours of arguments in major cases from North Carolina and Maryland on the practice known as partisan gerrymandering focused on whether courts should be empowered to block electoral maps when they are drawn by state legislators expressly to give one political party a lopsided advantage.”
“Conservative justices, who have a 5-4 majority on the court, signaled skepticism toward judicial intervention while liberal justices seemed supportive. The ruling is due by the end of June.”
“On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments over whether such partisanship violates the Constitution. One case involves the Republican-drawn map in North Carolina. A companion case centers on Maryland’s 6th Congressional District, which Democrats admit they redrew in 2011 to make it harder for the Republican incumbent,” the New York Times reports.
“The two cases hold the potential to set the course of American politics for generations. A decision to rein in partisan gerrymanders could reshape House maps in a number of states, largely but not exclusively to the benefit of Democrats. A decision not to rein in the mapmakers would give both political parties carte blanche to entrench themselves and hogtie their opponents when state legislatures draw the next decade’s House districts in 2021.”
“President Obama’s political organization is merging with Eric Holder’s National Redistricting Action Fund, giving it control of the vaunted list of supporters, donors and volunteers that Obama and his team built over more than a decade,” The Hill reports.
“The efforts ahead of the decennial reapportionment and redistricting process that begins next year, and that will have a major effect on the apportionment of electoral college votes and congressional districts.”
The Economist: “Ever since district borders in America’s House of Representatives were redrawn in 2011, Republicans’ share of seats has exceeded their proportion of the vote. In 2012 Democrats won 51% of the two-party vote but just 46% of seats.”
“The Congress that began on January 3rd, however, has no such imbalance. Democrats won 54% of the total two-party vote—and also 54% of House seats. Whatever became of the vaunted pro-Republican bias?”
“Many Republican mapmakers tried to neutralize Democratic voters by burying them in suburban districts full of educated whites. They never imagined that this ruse would backfire, but Mr Trump drove these once-loyal Republicans into Democrats’ arms.”
“The Supreme Court once again will take up unresolved constitutional questions about partisan gerrymandering, agreeing Friday to consider rulings from two lower courts that found congressional maps in North Carolina and Maryland so extreme that they violated the rights of voters,” the Washington Post reports.
“The North Carolina map was drawn by Republicans, the Maryland districts by the state’s dominant Democrats.”
“Wisconsin Democrats scored a huge win when Tony Evers captured the governor’s office last month. But an even bigger fight is looming as Republican lawmakers prepare to redraw legislative boundaries, stirring fears among Democrats that their rivals could take unprecedented steps to remove Evers from the process,” the AP reports.
“The next round of redistricting is set for early 2021. After suffocating for a decade from the 2011 maps, Democrats had high hopes in the first days after the election that Evers would block another set of Republican-drawn boundaries.”
“But nervous Democrats fear Republicans may take steps to remove or weaken the governor’s power in the redistricting process.”
“As Ohio Republicans won the race for every statewide executive job from the governor on down this year, something different happened in lower-profile races. The Democrats actually collected more total votes in the 116 Ohio House and Senate elections across the state,” the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.
“It’s a takeaway from Election 2018 that isn’t the usual headline grabber. More importantly, in terms of controlling Ohio’s government, the GOP won 72 of the 116 Statehouse races. But the Republicans scored their wins for 62 percent of the seats while collecting just under 50 percent of the total vote.”
“This is a lot like what happened in Ohio’s 16 congressional districts, where Republicans won 75 percent of the seats with just 52 percent of the overall vote.”
“Yet another redistricting lawsuit has been filed in North Carolina, this one challenging General Assembly boundaries that Democrats and election reform advocates say are illegally tainted by excessive favoritism toward Republicans,” the Greensboro News & Record reports.
“Common Cause North Carolina, the state Democratic Party and Democratic and unaffiliated voters sued GOP mapmakers Tuesday in Wake County court. They allege the lines are illegal partisan gerrymanders that make it virtually impossible for Democrats to win majorities in the House or Senate.”
“For years, some Democrats said gerrymandering was an insurmountable roadblock to the House majority that couldn’t be cleared until after the 2020 census. Then along came President Trump,” Politico reports.
“House Democrats steamrolled Republicans in an array of districts last week, from those drawn by independent commissions or courts, to seats crafted specifically by Republicans with the intention of keeping them in the GOP column.”
“The overriding factor: a Republican president who political mapmakers could not have foreseen at the beginning of the decade. Trump altered the two parties’ coalitions in ways that specifically undermined conventional wisdom about the House map, bringing more rural voters into the GOP tent while driving away college-educated voters.”
“Tuesday’s election results gave Democrats control of the House of Representatives for at least the next two years. But their success elsewhere on the ballot puts them in a better position to control it for the next decade after that,” USA Today reports.
“With Democratic candidates for governor and state lawmaker winning in several key states, the party broke Republican monopolies that redrew the political maps after the 2010 census – maps that have given the GOP an advantage in congressional elections in the years since.”
“On Tuesday, Democrats picked up full control of state governments in Colorado, Illinois, Maine, New Mexico, New York and Nevada. In several states where Republicans held full control – Kansas, Michigan, New Hampshire and Wisconsin – they will now share power with Democrats.”
Rick Hasen: “These are perilous times even for those who think that federal courts have no business messing with how state legislatures draw lines for legislative and congressional districts and that the issue is best left up to each state’s political system. Now that Justice Anthony Kennedy has left the stage, it is unlikely that the Court will stop extreme partisan gerrymandering.”
“But the Court may do more than simply fail to intervene. Within a few years, the Supreme Court may well hold unconstitutional state political processes that have produced measurably better redistricting reform for the drawing of congressional districts.”
A three-judge panel ruled that North Carolina’s 13 congressional districts will remain in place and so will the Nov. 6, 2018 election, the Raleigh News & Observer reports.
“The panel ruled last week that the districts are unconstitutional due to “partisan gerrymandering” designed to produce 10 Republican seats. But, with the election only two months away, the plaintiffs in the case — the North Carolina chapters of Common Cause and The League of Women Voters — argued that it was too late to change the maps despite their victory. On Tuesday, the court agreed.”
“Virginia lawmakers are set to meet in Richmond for a special session so they can comply with a court order to redraw the state’s legislative map,” the AP reports.
“Members of the Virginia House and Senate convene at noon Thursday. The special session comes after a federal court in June found that 11 House of Delegates districts were unconstitutionally gerrymandered. The court ordered lawmakers to redraw the state map by Oct. 30.”
A ruling by a panel of federal judges raised the potential of drawing new congressional districts in North Carolina before November’s election, the Charlotte Observer reports.
“Among the court’s proposed remedies this time: Redrawing the districts before November and holding a general election without a primary election, or redrawing the districts, holding a primary election in November and holding a general election sometime before Congress is seated in January 2019. The court also said it might allow the General Assembly another chance at redrawing the districts.”
Nate Silver: “If North Carolina were required to redistrict, would be worth another two seats or so for Democrats. Although with a high margin for error because of all of this happening at such a late date.”
Rick Hasen: “In a case with potentially national implications both short term and long, a three judge district court in North Carolina has held that the congressional redistricting plan—put in place after North Carolina’s districts last time were found to be a racial gerrymander—are an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. The remedy is not set yet, but the court may have a remedy in place for the 2018 elections, something I find surprising.”
“If this opinion stands (and given the current 4-4 split on the Supreme Court, any emergency action could well fail, leaving the lower court opinion in place), the court may well order new districts be drawn in time for the 2018 elections.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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