Stephen Wolf: “Late last week, Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis ruled that the congressional redistricting plan the Florida legislature enacted in 2012 was unconstitutionally violated the state’s new Fair Districts amendments… Lewis found that lawmakers drew the map with the intent of impermissibly advancing the interests of the Republican Party, improperly protecting certain incumbents and yielding districts that were not geometrically compact enough. However, due to the appeals a process, a revised map likely won’t be in place until the 2016 elections.”

“While many Democratic observers lauded the decision, it remains to be seen how big a victory plaintiffs won won. Though Lewis specifically ruled the 5th and 10th Districts were unconstitutional, only tiny segments were deemed outright violations of the Fair Districts amendments, and remedies for those segments could very well have a negligible partisan impact.”

“Democrats have long claimed that Republicans abused their legislative powers to elect a disproportionate number of U.S. House members. Now a Florida court is lending credence to their complaint,” the AP reports.

“The full impact of the Florida ruling — plus a similar lawsuit pending in North Carolina — won’t be known for some while. For now, at least, they shine light on the fiercely partisan practice of gerrymandering, in which state officials draw congressional districts to help their party.”

“Republicans and Democrats have engaged in gerrymandering for decades. Republicans refined the practice in 2011, a year after they won control of numerous state governments preparing to redraw congressional maps based on the 2010 census. It’s one reason Republicans hold a solid House majority even though Americans cast 1.4 million more votes for Democratic House candidates than for GOP House candidates in 2012.”

The Hill notes it’s not clear how the impact of a judge’s ruling invalidating Florida’s congressional districts will impact this year’s elections.

“The decision is certain to be appealed, and even many Democrats, who cheered the ruling, are doubtful that any redrawing could be implemented quickly enough for the 2014 elections. The state’s filing period has already closed ahead of the August 26 primary elections. The judge has yet to order actions going forward to correct the map.”

Jonathan Katz, a professor at the California Institute of Technology, testified in court that Florida’s congressional map “was heavily biased toward electing Republicans despite the state’s Democratic-edge in voters,” the Orlando Sentinel reports.

“His analysis suggested that the pro-GOP bias using 2010 voter-turnout data was 15.9 percent. Intuitively, that means Republicans could expect to capture 58 percent of the congressional seats to Democrats’ 42 percent of the seats, even if voter turnout was perfectly balanced at 50 percent GOP and 50 percent Democrat.”

“Katz concluded they were the most biased he had ever examined — easily twice as pro-Republican-leaning as Texas maps drawn by the chair of that state’s Republican Party.”

Wonk Wire: Which state has the most gerrymandered districts?

“A group of wealthy liberal donors who helped bankroll the Center for American Progress and other major advocacy groups on the left is developing a new big-money strategy that could boost state-level Democratic candidates and mobilize core party voters,” the Washington Post reports.

“The plan… seeks to give Democrats a stronger hand in the redrawing of district lines for state legislatures and the U.S. House. The effort reflects a sense among many top donors on the left that Democrats missed opportunities in 2010 to shape the redistricting process and contain the tea party wave that helped propel Republican victories around the country.”

The Daily Show interviews redistricting guru Kimball Brace on “the art of gerrymander.”

[Read more…]

Doug Sosnik: “The ballot box has traditionally been the place where Americans’ voices their discontent. But the political system has built-in safeguards through reapportionment and redistricting that will limit the vulnerability of most incumbent elected officials. These lines will not be redrawn until the beginning of the next decade, forestalling the massive desire for change that is building in our country.”

“This all suggests that the period of turmoil and dissatisfaction that we have been experiencing for the past 10 years could well continue through the end of this decade. However, underneath this turmoil you can see the shape of an emerging populist movement that will, in time, either move the politicians to action or throw them out of office. The country is moving toward new types of leaders, those who will be problem-solvers and build institutions that are capable of making a difference in people’s lives.”

David Wasserman doesn’t expect the Supreme Court’s decision this week on the Voting Rights Act to dramatically alter the current shape of congressional districts or redistricting in the long term. But on other matters such as voter ID laws, early voting, and polling locations, the effective end of the preclearance era could be a different story.

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Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has signed the Lone Star State’s new congressional map into law, “ending the state’s long and twisted redistricting saga of the 2012 cycle,” Roll Call reports.

“The governor’s approval comes one day after the Supreme Court gutted a provision in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that forced Texas to seek federal approval for any changes to its voting laws — including its congressional maps. The state was one of several covered by Section 5 because, according to the original law, it had a history of discrimination in its voting practices.”

Charlie Cook argues that the GOP’s “arguably rigged House majority” — achieved through the power of redistricting — could be a curse disguised as a blessing.

“They clearly did everything they could to purge Democratic voters from their districts ahead of 2012, no matter whether those voters were white, black, Hispanic, left-handed, or right-minded–just as Democrats would have done had the roles been reversed. But in the process of quarantining Democrats, Republicans effectively purged millions of minority voters from their own districts, and that should raise a warning flag. By drawing themselves into safe, lily-white strongholds, have Republicans inadvertently boxed themselves into an alternate universe that bears little resemblance to the rest of the country?”

John Sides dismisses the idea that gerrymandering has led to our polarized politics.

“The most important influence on how members of Congress vote is not their constituents, but their party. This makes them out-of-step not only with the average American… but also, and ironically, with even their base. Members are more partisan than even voters in their party.”

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) said that surprise redistricting effort from the members of his party in the state Senate was something he only learned about right before it happened, the Fredericksburg Star reports.

Said McDonnell: “I certainly don’t think that’s a good way to do business.”

“He said he has not yet spoken to House leadership about the redistricting issue. The Senate redistricting plan must go to the House next.”

GOP pollster Bill McInturff:

“Republicans captured 49.4% of the two-party vote for Congress in 2012, yet won 54% of the seats in the House. This gap between the Republican vote and the seats they won is on the high side, but certainly not without precedent over the past 40 years. If you began your career as a Republican trying to win the House in the 1970s and 1980s, you would adopt, as I do, the borrowed adage ‘there’s no crying in redistricting.'”

“Since 2004, Rhode Island’s population has dropped by more than 24,000 people, an exodus unprecedented in the state’s history,” the Providence Journal reports.

The New York Times notes it’s likely the state will lose a congressional seat in the next redistricting in 2020.

Google has a map featuring the newly-redrawn congressional districts for almost every state.

The exception is Kansas, which hasn’t finalized their new districts.  There are also court challenges pending in several states, so there may be additional changes in the coming weeks.

John Avlon looks at the latest round of gerrymandering and notes “the weasel-y-ness is worse than ever, with outrages and embarrassments covered mostly by local media.”

“Legislators from both parties will
continue to get away with the maximum amount of self-dealing and
self-interest they can get away with – unless they feel it is no longer
in their self-interest because of citizen pressure. That’s why these
local tales of rigging the system of redistricting should matter to you,
no matter what state you live in.”

The Supreme Court instructed the district court that overturned and
redrew the Texas Legislature’s redistricting map to try again, The New
York Times reports. In an unsigned unanimous decision, the Justices said
“the lower court had not paid enough deference to the Legislature’s
choices and had improperly substituted its own values for those of
elected officials.”

“The justices acted just 11 days after hearing
arguments in the case. Primaries in Texas had already been moved back to
April. For those primaries to proceed, officials there said, an answer
from the courts was needed by Feb. 1… As many as four House seats hang
in the balance, experts in election administration say.”