David Wasserman: “It’s easy for opponents of gerrymandering — the drawing of political boundaries for the benefit of one party or group over another — to argue what districts shouldn’t look like. All they have to do is ridicule the absurdity of the most bizarre patchworks ever woven to elect members of Congress.”

“But it’s much more difficult to say what districts should look like, because reformers can disagree on what priorities should govern our political cartography. Should districts be drawn to be more compact? More conducive to competitive elections? More inclusive of underrepresented racial groups? Should they yield a mix of Democratic and Republican representatives that better matches the political makeup of a state? Could they even be drawn at random? These concepts can be difficult to define and often stand in tension with one another.”

Wasserman hand-drew 2,568 new congressional districts for the entire country to illustrate the challenge.

“A request by the Justice Department to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census could shift the nation’s balance of political power from cities to more rural communities over the next decade and give Republicans a new advantage drawing electoral boundaries,” the Washington Post reports.

“Population numbers produced by the census are used in many ways, notably to draw political districts and distribute government funds across the country. Adding questions to the decennial survey is usually a controversial and difficult process because of the potential to affect both of those functions — either by suppressing census participation or by creating new ways to define populations.”

“All of it has prompted advocates for Hispanic communities to accuse the Justice Department of wanting to produce a less accurate count in 2020.”

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court “struck down the boundaries of the state’s 18 congressional districts, granting a major victory to plaintiffs who had contended that they were unconstitutionally gerrymandered to benefit Republicans,” the AP reports.

“The order from the Democratic-controlled court gives the Republican-controlled Legislature until Feb. 9 to pass a replacement and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf until Feb. 15 to submit it to the court.”

Stephen Wolf estimates that Democrats could gain several House seats with a new nonpartisan map.

[alert type=”general” dismiss=”no”]Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation is controlled by Republicans, 13 to 5, even though Democratic voters outnumber registered Republicans.[/alert]

“A panel of federal judges struck down North Carolina’s congressional map on Tuesday, declaring it unconstitutionally gerrymandered and demanding that the Republican-controlled General Assembly redraw district lines before this year’s midterm elections,” the New York Times reports.

“The ruling was the first time that a federal court had blocked a congressional map because the judges believed it to be a partisan gerrymander, and it deepened the political chaos that has enveloped North Carolina in recent years.”

Washington Post: “The ruling marks the second time this decade that the GOP’s congressional boundaries in North Carolina have been thrown out by a three-judge panel.”

Stephen Wolf: “On Dec. 20, the Census Bureau released its population estimates for 2017 for every state, detailing how many residents each state has gained or lost since the 2010 census. The firm Election Data Services has used these estimates to project how many congressional seats each state might gain or lose in the 2020 round of reapportionment, which assigns each state its share of the House’s 435 districts based on its population.”

“The Justice Department is pushing for a question on citizenship to be added to the 2020 census, a move that observers say could depress participation by immigrants who fear that the government could use the information against them. That, in turn, could have potentially large ripple effects for everything the once-a-decade census determines — from how congressional seats are distributed around the country to where hundreds of billions of federal dollars are spent,” ProPublica reports.

“Observers said they feared adding a citizenship question would not only lower response rates, but also make the census more expensive and throw a wrench into the system with just two years to go before the 2020 count. Questions are usually carefully field-tested, a process that can take years.”

“The Trump administration is leaning toward naming Thomas Brunell, a Texas professor with no government experience, to the top operational job at the U.S. Census Bureau,” Politico reports.

“Brunell, a political science professor, has testified more than half a dozen times on behalf of Republican efforts to redraw congressional districts, and is the author of a 2008 book titled Redistricting and Representation: Why Competitive Elections Are Bad for America. The choice would mark the administration’s first major effort to shape the 2020 Census, the nationwide count that determines which states lose and gain electoral votes and seats in the House of Representatives.”

Jeff Greenfield: “It’s an attractive conclusion; and Lord knows the possibility of ending the steadily more outrageous phenomenon of partisan gerrymandering is a worthy goal in itself.”

“But if Democrats think this is the key to their political woes, they are kidding themselves. What ails the party—at every level—goes far beyond alleged Republican skullduggery. And a diagnosis of those ills requires an understanding of what the last decade has wrought.”

“A new Republican group launching Thursday has budgeted $35 million to strengthen the party’s influence over the next round of redistricting, the complicated process of drawing favorable political boundaries for state and federal legislative districts,” the Washington Examiner reports.

“The National Republican Redistricting Trust, overseen by Guy Harrison and other senior party strategists, was formed as a counterweight to the new Democratic group backed by former President Obama and led by former Attorney General Eric Holder.”

Barack Obama “will formally reenter the political fray this week less than six months after leaving office, headlining a fundraiser for a group that could prove critical to the Democratic Party’s rebuilding efforts,” the Washington Post reports.

“Obama’s appearance Thursday before a few dozen people at a closed-door event in the District on behalf of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee highlights the balance he is trying to strike as his party seeks to regain its footing at both the state and national levels.”

“The Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear a potential landmark case that addresses how far lawmakers can go in choosing their voters, rather than the other way around,” USA Today reports.

“Venturing into what one justice recently called the ‘always unsavory’ process of drawing election districts for partisan advantage, the court will try to set a standard — something it has failed to do in the past.”

Washington Post: “The justices regularly are called to invalidate state electoral maps that have been illegally drawn to reduce the influence of racial minorities by depressing the impact of their votes. But the Supreme Court has never found a plan unconstitutional because of partisan gerrymandering. If it does, it would have a revolutionary impact on the reapportionment that comes after the 2020 election, and could come at the expense of Republicans, who control the process in the majority of states.”

Rick Hasen: “This case represents the last best chance for a Court to rein in excesses of partisan gerrymandering, while Justice Kennedy, who has been the swing vote on this issue, remains on the Court.”

“The Supreme Court ruled Monday that racial considerations pervaded the way North Carolina lawmakers drew congressional maps after the 2010 Census in order to maximize Republicans’ advantage,” USA Today reports.

“The 5-3 ruling, written by Justice Elena Kagan, was the latest in a series of decisions by the justices against the excessive use of race in redistricting, the decennial process of drawing new district lines for Congress and state legislatures.”