The battle over how states are redesigning their districts begins

Redistribution is stepping up a gear – legislatures and special committees hold special sessions to manage the ten-year redraw state and congressional districts.

With Democrats holding a slim eight-seat margin in the House and Republicans in charge in most states adding seats in the wake of the 2020 census tally, legislative and legal battles over how the lines are drawn will certainly have an impact on the 2022 midterm elections.

Texas could win 2-4 GOP seats under draft plan

Texas, one of six states add seats in Congress due to population growth, has released a map project of his congressional lines Monday. It received two new seats in the allocation process. The new 37th Borough has been added to the predominantly Democratic city of Austin, while the GOP-friendly suburb of Houston will be home to the 38th Borough.

Bob Stein, an expert on redistribution at Rice University, said the challenge in drawing these two new districts is that population growth has been fueled by Democratic-leaning metropolitan communities.

“They just have people in the wrong places in the state. Where they want people to be in rural and peri-urban areas, they just don’t have them,” Stein told CBS News.

The Texas cards greatly strengthen the hold of incumbents of both parties over their seats and allow fewer draw races – although there are far fewer secure Democratic seats than Republicans.

Michael Li, senior attorney for the Brennan Center for Justice, said it was evident that Republicans “are very scared of suburban voters,” noting that a number of incumbent suburban districts such as the 2nd, Texas’ 22nd and 24th were drawn to include more rural areas, which more reliably vote Republican.

“He’s not an aggressive gerrymander in the sense of ‘let’s take five more seats.’ He’s an aggressive gerrymander in the sense of” let’s get things off the table for the Democrats, “Li said.

Districts for Vulnerable Democrats like Reps Lizzie Fletcher and Colin Allred have been lured in to draw more Democratic voters away from nearby GOP districts.

Democratic Representatives Al Green and Sheila Jackson-Lee are listed as alive in the same 9th arrondissement, while Republican Dan Crenshaw and Democrat Sylvia Garcia are in the 29th. Applicants are not required to live in their district to run, and Green or Jackson-Lee could run in the nearby 18th district and open in Houston.

Crenshaw could also continue to run in Ward 2, where Republican Congressman Kevin Brady is listed as alive. Brady announced in April that he was stepping down from Congress.

Stein predicted Republicans could win anywhere from two to up to four seats with this card. He noted the new 38th District and 15th District in Texas, which became a seat that Trump won by about 6,000 votes, as potential additions for the GOP.

“[Republicans] can’t do what they did in 2010, they can’t go too far, “Stein said, adding that Democrats could still try to challenge the” crooked “pattern of districts like 33rd, in counties. Dallas and Tarrant in court.

Li added that the 33rd, which is currently represented by Democrat Marc Veasy, is losing its status as a constituency made up of a majority of minority voters under the proposed map. The Dallas-Fort Worth area is reduced to having just two minority opportunity districts, even though it has a similar demographics to the Houston area, which has three. The map project also lacks a district where black voters are in the majority.

“He’s an aggressive gerrymander yet again accomplished at the expense of the communities of color which accounted for 95% of the state’s population growth over the past decade,” he said.

Some civil rights groups are already threatening legal action. Domingo Garcia, national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), said his organization was ready to sue if Texas lawmakers did not change the cards to give Latinos more voting power.

“Texas is changing, and Republicans in Texas, especially those in the (state) Senate and Congress must accept that they must allow for adequate representation of our community,” Garcia told reporters on Monday. .

Ohio still fighting for legislative cards

In Ohio, the fight for redistribution is still fought at the state level, with Democrats and voter groups to chase the state redistribution commission on legislative maps, saying they are unfairly gerrymandered – or drawn to be biased – in favor of Republicans.

On Thursday, the League of Women Voters and the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio sued the seven-member Redistribution Commission, which includes GOP Governor Mike DeWine and Secretary of State Frank LaRose, to the Supreme Court of the Ohio.

They argue that the map adopted in September by the commission on a 5-2 party line vote should be redesigned, and that its adoption “doubly dishonours” voter preferences and a constitutional redistribution amendment passed in 2015. The National Committee The Ohio Council on American-Islamic Relations is also supporting lawsuits against the Ohio Commission on Maps.

The Republican-approved map of the committee favors their party in more than 66% of the state House districts and 69% of the state Senate districts, according to the lawsuit, which could give the GOP power veto in the Legislative Assembly.

A reform passed in 2015 broadened the commission and aimed to create more transparency and palliatives in the redistribution process, requiring, for example, that at least two members from each political party approve the card to last a lifetime. decade. Because no Democrat voted for, the card that was passed is only valid for four years.

“The distortion of the map passed last week is just as extreme – and in some ways even more extreme – as the gerrymander who ultimately motivated Ohioans to pass the anti-gerrymandering constitutional amendment,” the lawsuit said.

John Fortney, communications director for the Ohio Senate Majority Caucus, says the cards are “constitutional and compliant.”

Although Democrats won 46% of the vote in the 2020 presidential election, Republicans on the Ohio Redistribution Committee reasoned that their party’s victories in thirteen of the last sixteen statewide races mean up to 81% of the state is in favor of the Republican candidates.

LaRose says he tried to compromise with the Democrats on the committee and pass a decade-long map, but negotiations collapsed.

“When I am faced with this binary choice between a less than ideal map drawn by my party and a less than ideal map drawn by the other party, well, I voted with my party,” he said. he declares. Spectrum News Ohio.

Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, worked on gerrymandering reforms in 2015 and 2018. She is disappointed with the board’s map.

“What we saw was procrastination, a reluctance to hear from experts,” she told CBS News before the lawsuit was filed.

The Ohio Assembly is expected to miss its Sept. 30 deadline to approve a congressional district card, which requires the approval of at least half of the Democrats in each chamber.

If that threshold is not met, the task then passes to the commission, which will need the support of the two Democrats to pass anything regarding federal state lines. If that fails, he returns to the chamber and requires the support of a third of Democrats in each chamber.

If all else fails, a majority vote in the assembly would adopt a four-year card and repeat the process in 2025.

Oregon could potentially add a Democratic seat

In Oregon, the Democratic-controlled House and Senate passed a congressional map that would seize the new seat of the State House, and gives the party four safe Democratic districts and a competitive seat to hold onto.

The card now goes to Democratic Governor Kate Brown for passage.

The new map would create four secure Democratic seats, one secure Republican seat and one competitive seat for Democratic incumbent Kurt Schrader. The map divides Portland into four of six congressional districts, a move that angered Republicans across the state.

“Did I mention Portland in one of the Central Oregon Common Interest? No, I didn’t,” GOP State Representative Jack Zika said Monday.

“There are some alarming signals coming out of how the parties are seeing this. It’s a very existential fight and everyone is in their corner,” Li said. “People don’t seem in the mood to compromise right now. ”

Li added that the Republicans’ advantage over congressional constituency allocation (187 seats) nationally, over Democrats (75 seats) could result in Democrats adopting an “ultra-aggressive” approach. Gerrymandering in states they control – like New York or Illinois.

New York card could earn Democrats 4-5 seats

New York’s new bipartisan Redistribution Commission couldn’t agree on its congressional card proposals earlier this month and instead submitted two partisan cards to the Democratic legislature for approval.

Democrats on the commission drew lines that pit incumbent Republican officials against each other in upstate New York and could earn Democrats between four and five seats in Congress.

Former attorney general and chairman of the National Democratic Redistribution Commission, Eric Holder, argued that part of the population loss in upstate New York justified the drawing of GOP incumbents in the same district. He also said the map created in 2011 by the Republican-led legislature “did not accurately reflect the makeup” of New York voters.

“This combination coupled with population changes – you should see a pretty substantial decrease in Republican representation in the House delegation from New York. It’s not a function of gerrymandering – it’s a function of the number of people. people there, ”he said on a call with reporters.