Category: redistricting

14 States Urge Supreme Court to Block New Alabama Redistricting Ordered by Lower Court

Fourteen states are urging the Supreme Court to reject a lower court’s ruling that a new congressional electoral map approved by Alabama’s legislature last year be returned to state lawmakers for redrafting because it supposedly disadvantages black voters. The move comes after a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of…


Virginia Supreme Court Adopts Electoral Map Shifting Congressional Districts

The Virginia Supreme Court has given its blessing to new electoral maps for Virginia’s congressional delegation and its state legislature following a process that for the first time kept elected officials out of the decision-making. The contentious once-in-a-decade exercise included a bipartisan redistricting commission that deadlocked and failed to complete the task. It then fell…


Dem Senators Tell Virginia Supreme Court Redrawn Electoral Map Doesn’t Protect Democrats Enough

Virginia’s two Democratic U.S. senators urged the Virginia Supreme Court to reject proposed changes to the state’s congressional map, claiming that those changes would make it more difficult for three incumbent Democratic lawmakers to get reelected. The Dec. 20 letter from the two male senators emphasizes that all three of their electorally endangered colleagues are…


Latest California Redistricting Maps Could Hurt GOP

Commentary Despite speculation of Republicans regaining the party’s majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2022, they may find it tough to maintain their 11 congressional seats from California. Democrats have a good chance of increasing their total from the current 42, although the state will lose one seat, from 53 to 52. That’s…


Orange County Supervisors Choose Intriguing New Redistricting Map

Commentary This week, the Orange County Board of Supervisors voted to change their boundaries by dramatically redistricting the five supervisorial districts. This process is required every ten years, after receiving the United States decennial census results, but rarely has it been so intriguing. All five supervisors should have voted for the final redistricting map, but…


Ohio Gov. Signs Redistricting Bill Shaking Up State’s Political Map

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed into effect a redistricting bill, Senate Bill 258, marking the first time in nearly 200 years that five of the Buckeye State’s major cities are each contained within one congressional district and do not gerrymander. The redistricting follows the 2020 Census and cuts the number of Ohio’s legislative districts from…


OC Board of Supervisors Selects Final Redistricting Map

The Orange County Board of Supervisors made a final decision on how supervisorial districts will be laid out for the next decade, during a special meeting on Nov. 22. The board originally started the process using maps submitted by the public, which after weeks of meetings and discussion were revised into two main maps, 4C-1,…


LA City Council’s Hybrid Redistricting Map to Undergo Second Public Hearing

LOS ANGELES—A map creating boundaries for Los Angeles’s 15 council districts—developed by a subcommittee of the city council after its president tossed out a version developed by a citizen-led panel—will again go before the public for comment and the council for discussion Nov. 23. According to LA City Council President Nury Martinez, reworking the original…


Virginia Supreme Court Names Outside Experts to Draw Maps in Messy Redistricting Fight

The Virginia Supreme Court has appointed two special masters nominated by either political party to redraw Virginia’s electoral maps within a 30-day deadline after an independent state commission deadlocked over a redistricting plan. A special master is someone appointed by a court to carry out some sort of action on its behalf, in this case…


Analyzing California’s Congressional Redistricting

Commentary Sometimes more important than elections themselves is the decennial redistricting mandated after each U.S. Census. It’s a large country and Americans move around a lot. Throw in immigration, and each new numbering means the political dynamics change. For California, the big news was losing a seat in Congress for the first time ever. The…