The GOP’s Secret to Protecting Gerrymandered Electoral Maps? Claim Privilege.

Eva Bonilla grows furious when she thinks about how Latino voters are treated by the Republican power structure in Texas. At 74, the small business owner watched the GOP Legislature pass a series of measures like a voter ID law that she felt would make it harder for Latinos to cast ballots or run for public office.

Two years ago, serving as the leader of a Hispanic women’s group in Fort Worth, she decided to strike back. The Republican Legislature had just pushed through new election maps that carved up Latino communities and made it even harder for them to elect candidates of their choice. So Bonilla joined other minority voters as plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit alleging intentional discrimination in the 2021 redistricting plan.

“I wanted to see the right thing done, and this is just not right,” she said.

Then Bonilla waited.

Supreme Court likely to side with South Carolina GOP in racial gerrymandering case

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Wednesday appeared likely to uphold a Republican-drawn congressional district in South Carolina that a lower court found was racially gerrymandered.

The case — Alexander v. South Carolina Conference of the NAACP — tests the legal limits of partisan gerrymandering when it intersects with race. The NAACP is accusing Republican lawmakers of drawing the state’s 1st District, represented by GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, by shuffling Black voters in and out of the district to make it reliably Republican.

Dems inch toward House majority with recent court wins

The fundamentals of the 2024 campaign are still taking shape, but one thing is already clear: A flurry of court actions might cost Republicans the House majority.

In the past nine days, state and federal judges threw out two congressional maps — and helped Democrats avoid a worst-case scenario in Ohio — kicking off an unusually busy redistricting calendar heading into the election year.

All told, a dozen or more seats across at least six states could be redrawn, increasing the likelihood Democrats could chip away the five-seat GOP House majority through redistricting alone.

Trump Team, ALEC, Koch Industries Debate Gerrymandering the US Senate in Denver

Now that GOP state legislators have control over 32 state legislatures (both chambers), thanks in large part to partisan gerrymandering, some extremists are preparing to use their clout to gerrymander the US Senate.

This week in Denver, July 19-21, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) will welcome Republican state legislators and its corporate funders, including Koch Industries, ExxonMobil, K12 Inc., Peabody Energy, and PhRMA, to vote on corporate legislative priorities and create cookie cutter "model" bills in task force meetings that are still closed to the press.

Liberal ‘Gerrymandering’ Handed Them Election Win: Analyst

The government’s manipulation of British Columbia’s electoral boundaries benefited the BC Liberal Party in last week’s election, according to one political analyst.

In an article titled “Gerrymandered ridings gave BC Liberals narrow election win,” Will McMartin details in the Pacific Political Report newsletter how the BC Liberals succeeded in rigging the boundary setting process to benefit themselves.

Wisconsin judge orders state GOP to redraw gerrymandered legislative districts

A federal court issued a ruling on Friday that the Wisconsin Republican Party is sure to dislike — namely, ordering it to redraw its state legislative districts so they aren’t gerrymandered to Republicans’ advantage.

This was a follow-up to a ruling in November in which a federal court determined that Wisconsin had drawn up its districts so as to give Republicans a constant advantage in state elections, according to The Washington Post on Saturday. The Wisconsin GOP’s actions were part of a larger national process in which Republican congressional leaders redrew nearly half of all congressional districts after the Republicans won 21 state legislatures during the 2010 midterm elections. As a result, even though Democratic state legislative candidates in Wisconsin received more votes than Republicans in the November 2016 elections, they only won 39 of that state’s 99 districts. Republicans are planning to appeal Friday’s decision to the Supreme Court.

Alabama found guilty of racial gerrymandering

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the state of Alabama engaged in unconstitutional racial gerrymandering in at least 12 districts in order to preserve a Republican supermajority. The ruling is a victory for the state’s Legislative Black Caucus, which has been fighting in court for years against voting maps that intentionally limit the voting power of African Americans by packing them into as few oddly-shaped districts as possible.

The decision, which came down on the day Donald Trump took the presidential oath of office, calls on Alabama to re-draw 12 districts that were drawn “predominantly” based on race. These districts are all currently represented by Democrats, and 10 out of 12 by Black Democrats.

One of the biggest legal guns in the country is coming for partisan gerrymandering

It’s only a slight exaggeration to say that the fate of the American Republic rests on how Justice Anthony Kennedy votes in Gill v. Whitford, a gerrymandering case that is all but certain to be heard by the Supreme Court. And now, that case is set to be argued by the single most qualified lawyer in the country to present such a case to the justices.

Last November, a three-judge federal court struck down Wisconsin’s state assembly maps, saying they were unconstitutionally drawn to advantage Republicans. That alone is a big deal. The Supreme Court has been highly skeptical of gerrymandering suits in the past. Though Kennedy refused to slam the door entirely shut to such suits, many obstacles remain in front of any attorney who seeks a federal court order against a gerrymandered map.

Justice Ginsburg Deals a Blow to Partisan Gerrymandering

In a victory for opponents of partisan gerrymandering, the Supreme Court on Monday upheld the use of an independent commission to draw Arizona's congressional districts. Writing for a narrow majority in the 5-4 ruling, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg touted the importance of direct democracy and making sure the power of the people is not hijacked by its elected representatives.

"The people of Arizona turned to the initiative to curb the practice of gerrymandering," Ginsburg wrote. "In so acting, Arizona voters sought to restore 'the core principle of republican government,' namely, 'that the voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around.'" Ginsburg's opinion was joined by the three other liberal-leaning justices and Justice Anthony Kennedy.

If The Supreme Court Reads This Study, It Could End Partisan Gerrymandering Forever

For the last decade, the Supreme Court of the United States has openly refused to police partisan gerrymandering even in egregious cases where the state legislature or its congressional delegation bears little resemblance to the will of the people. A new study out of Duke University, however, casts serious doubts on the reasoning of the justices who have thus-far refused to strike down unconstitutional gerrymanders.

In 2012, Democratic U.S. House candidates in North Carolina received 81,190 more votes that Republicans. Republicans received just under half of the votes earned by the two parties. And yet, the GOP walked away with 9 of the state’s 13 congressional districts. So, despite the fact that they earned just over 49 percent of the two-party vote, Republicans won nearly 70 percent of the state’s congressional seats.

Gerrymandering possible, but also difficult to achieve, and ‘dangerous’ for democracy

Gerrymandering is possible in the electoral boundaries redistribution, but also highly difficult, and if it is happening, it’s “very dangerous,” say government and opposition MPs.

“It would be possible, but it would require collusion on the part of the people appointed to the commission,” said Green Party Leader Elizabeth May (Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.). “Certainly, my experience with the British Columbia commission, where I’ve certainly paid more attention, is that couldn’t happen there. I’m doubtful it could happen in Saskatchewan.”