THREE STATES SET TO REDRAW HOUSE DISTRICTS

The House redistricting process, as set by the Constitution, is supposed to happen once every ten years. Ambiguous federal statutes and federal judges armed with Periclean fantasies means a few states are often forced to “redo” their Congressional maps.

Before the 2016 elections, some voters in Florida, Virginia and North Carolina will likely find themselves moved into new Congressional districts.

It should come as no surprise that the lawsuits challenging the maps in the three states were brought by the National Democrat Redistricting Trust. The organization is run by former staff members of the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee. It is a blatant attempt to litigate what was lost at the ballot box.

In Virginia, a federal judge has ordered the legislature to redraw the 3rd Congressional District, which has been represented by Rep. Bobby Scott since 1993. The district has been a majority-black district since 1991. In the last redistricting, the GOP controlled legislature changed the make-up of the district from 53 percent black to 56 percent black. That small change apparently offended the sensibilities of a Federal judge. The legislature has been ordered to make the district slightly less majority-black.

In Florida, the Democrats claim that “politics” guided the state legislators in drawing the new districts. The plaintiffs, who, again, are national Democrats, point to the use of “mapping principles” to protect DNC Chair 

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL)

4%

 and increase the number of “safe” Democrat seats. Among the witnesses is the Executive Director of the Florida Democrat Party, who said he tried to influence the political make-up of the districts.

So, the Democrats are using the fact that they themselves tried to politically influence the make-up of the Republican-drawn districts to argue that the districts should be tossed. Unsurprisingly, a Federal judge agreed. At the heart of the issue are four House seats, two held by each party, that must be redrawn.

The state Legislatures in Virginia and Florida are currently in special session to redraw the districts. In North Carolina, the state Supreme Court is preparing to hear arguments in a similar case. It is likely that state will also have to redraw some of its districts.

In Washington, DC, where every political story is viewed through the prism of Capitol Hill politics, some pundits are conjecturing that the remapping process in these states will eliminate three GOP members who are thorns in the side of House GOP leadership.

In Florida, one of the seats that must be redrawn is occupied by 

Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL)

63%

, a Republican who challenged Boehner in the Speaker’s race. Republican

Rep. David Jolly (R-FL)

45%

, a key Boehner ally, who occupies another seat set to be redrawn has already announced his intention to run for U.S. Senate.

In Virginia, 

Rep. David Brat (R-VA)

100%

t, who unseated Rep. Eric Cantor in a primary last year, occupies the House seat neighboring Rep. Scott’s district. 

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC)

96%

, who recently filed a petition to vacate the election of 

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)

35%

 as Speaker, could potentially have his district redrawn in North Carolina, if the state Supreme Court scraps the existing map.

“These conservative members should definitely assume that they are enemy No. 1 on the list,” Daniel Horowitz, senior editor of the Conservative Review told National Journal. “If you’re going to redraw the maps, who’s going to be your first priority? … If the establishment could kill two birds with one stone—comply with the courts and pick off a conservative—they would absolutely take that opportunity.”

I think Horowitz sees the world too much through DC’s glasses. Having worked on redistricting, decisions have far more to do with state politics, and the ambitions of state legislators, than the drama within the federal House caucus.

The Congressional districts surrounding Rep. Scott’s district in Virginia, for example, are so Republican that tweaks to the lines are very unlikely to jeopardize Rep. Bratt or 

Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA)

60%

, who also borders Scott’s district. It is hard to envision any changes to the district lines that would make either Bratt or Forbes vulnerable in a primary, never mind a general election.

It is possible that Rep. Webster in Florida and Rep. Meadows in North Carolina face existential changes to their districts. If they do, it is likely to have very little to do with their standing in the U.S. House GOP caucus. Their political futures lay in the hands of legislators in the state capitols, not Washington.

The larger story here isn’t really about the GOP leadership in Washington. It is yet another example of how far Democrats will go to overturn the results of elections. That federal judges are even involved is testament to how freely that party feels it can ignore even plain Constitutional text.

Via: Breitbart

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Now fix congressional redistricting

On this July Fourth, it is worth celebrating a ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court, lifting the smoke screen laid by John Boehner to stall action on plans to draw fair, competitive U.S. House districts in Ohio. The court upheld the right of Arizona voters to create an independent commission to draw U.S. House districts. It turned back a challenge from the Republican-dominated Arizona legislature, which wanted to regain control.

As House speaker, Boehner used his influence to cloud discussion in the Ohio legislature, also dominated by Republicans. The expressed concern was that the state should not move forward until the Arizona case was resolved. Actually, what is under discussion here would leave the legislature with a dominant role in the redistricting process, the parallel to Arizona a stretch, at best.

When the Arizona legislature sued, it took a narrow reading of the U.S. Constitution, which states that the “times, places and manner” of holding congressional elections “shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.”

What the lawsuit failed to consider was that Arizona voters, in initiating a constitutional amendment, were acting in place of the legislature. In a 5-4 decision, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg found the U.S. Constitution’s reference to the “legislature” included ballot measures such as the one Arizona voters passed in 2000 to create an independent commission.

It now is time for the Ohio legislature to repair how U.S. House districts are drawn here, using as its model a proposed constitutional amendment on state legislative districts that it has placed on the November ballot. Instead of state lawmakers drawing new U.S. House districts after each census, the job would go to the same commission that would be created for state legislative districts.

The seven-member body would be composed of the governor, auditor and secretary of state, plus four legislators, two from the minority party. With incentives to encourage bipartisan action and rules to minimize the splitting of communities, the state’s U.S. House districts would come into better balance.

As matters stand, districts created by the Republican-led legislature do not reflect the real balance of power between Republicans and Democrats. In a state where Barack Obama won twice, and which elected Sherrod Brown to the U.S. Senate, Republicans control 12 of 16 U.S. House seats. Without sufficient competition, extreme views easily can take hold.

In the state Senate, Frank LaRose, a Copley Township Republican, and Tom Sawyer, an Akron Democrat, have long worked on redistricting reform and are ready to introduce an amendment for U.S. House districts that would mirror the bipartisan plan for legislative districts. In the House, a similar idea has been introduced by two Democrats, Mike Curtin of Marble Cliff and Kathleen Clyde of Kent.

With lawmakers on summer break, action by the August deadline for placing another constitutional amendment on the fall ballot is unlikely. But once back in session, the legislature should make sure an amendment on U.S. House districts gets on the ballot next year. If lawmakers fail to act promptly, voter advocates should take charge with a petition drive.

Via: Ohio.com

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The Most Important Redistricting Case in 50 Years

In a pair of cases decided in 1964, the Supreme Court of the United States famously established the “one person, one vote” test. This meant that all congressional districts would be required to have the same number of people, while state legislative districts must have roughly the same number. The consequences of those decisions were both immediate and far-reaching. A wave of mid-decade redistricting swept the country, as virtually every congressional and legislative district had to be, at a minimum, tweaked to account for population discrepancies. Rural districts in particular lost representation, while the depopulation of urban centers helped usher in the rise of the suburbs in Congress.

Last week, the Supreme Court shocked watchers by agreeing to hear a case that could have consequences of a similar magnitude. In 1966, in a follow-up to the Reynolds v. Sims decision, the court had held that states did not necessarily need to use persons as the basis for their representation schemes. Since then the court has at times been asked to adopt various different metrics. It generally resisted these entreaties, although Justice Clarence Thomas has, at times, urged the court to take up these cases.

So most were caught off guard when the court decided to take up Evenwel v. Abbott. The plaintiffs in that case asked the court to clarify that onlycitizens should be counted for purposes of drawing legislative districts. The “why” of this is a bit complex, but it grows out of a (superficial, in my mind) tension between the 14th Amendment, which apportions voting districts on the basis of population, and the Voting Rights Act, which requires that states ensure there are a sufficient number of citizens of voting age in a given group to enable that group to elect a candidate of its choice.

If the court were to find for the plaintiffs – and it seems unlikely that the court would have gratuitously taken up this case, absent a circuit split, if there weren’t some substantial support for the plaintiffs’ position – it would mean that, once again, virtually every legislative and congressional district in the country would have to be redrawn (although this would not, as some have suggested, affectapportionment – i.e. the number of seats allocated to each state). This would occur at a time when Republicans control a record-high number of state legislatures and a majority of state governments. Republicans would be able to update their maps to account for changes in political orientations in their states since the previous round of redistricting.

But this would have implications for Democratic-controlled states as well. Consider that in 2012, counties with high citizen populations were more likely to vote for Mitt Romney (the t-stat is 9.047). Of the 35 states with four or more congressional districts, there was a statistically significant, positive correlation between the share of county residents who were citizens and the share of voters who cast ballots for Mitt Romney in 18 of the states, most of which are among our largest: California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Via: Real Clear Politics

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