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In the end, the hubbub and national attention that Texas House Democrats drew earlier this month by fleeing Texas and busting the chamber’s quorum did little to stop the inevitable. Whoever could’ve seen that one coming?…
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Emma Ruby
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The Texas House on Wednesday approved a new redistricting map designed to pick up five additional GOP Congressional seats over vocal opposition and last-minute stall tactics from the minority Democratic party, representing a significant hurdle before Gov. Greg Abbott signs it into law.
The measure passed 88-52. Texas Democrats say the effort is unnecessary, illegal, and racist. After a two-week quorum break where more than 50 lawmakers fled the state to avoid voting on the redistricting bill, they returned to the Capitol on Monday, prepared to vote against the map and vowing to challenge it in court.
Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, who authored House Bill 4, said the districts were drawn “primarily on the basis of political performance.”
“This plan includes political considerations, public testimony, recognition of population growth, and recent changes in voter trends,” Hunter said. “Thirty-seven of the 38 congressional districts have changed to some degree. The primary changes are focused on only five districts for partisan purposes.”
“Four of the five new districts are majority-minority Hispanic,” he added. “Each of these newly-drawn districts now trend Republican in political performance. While there’s no guarantee in electorate success, Republicans will now have an opportunity to potentially win these districts.”
The Texas House of Representatives approved new congressional districts on Wednesday, with Democrats vowing to challenge the map in court.
Texas Legislative Council
More than two dozen Democrats spoke against the map during a lengthy floor debate that began at 10 a.m. and ended around 5:30 p.m., saying they wanted to establish a record that could be used in a legal challenge. Some encouraged their Republican colleagues to save their emails and text messages because the courts would be coming for them.
“We should have been debating a bill to restore flood relief to many Texans who lost their lives in the Kerr County historic flooding, but instead the first bill that we’re taking up is a racially gerrymandered House Bill 4, mid-decade redistricting that is totally unnecessary,” said Rep. Ron Reynolds, D-Missouri City.
The legislator was one of many who alleged that the redistricting effort involves “packing and cracking,” or widening the GOP advantage by unconstitutionally compressing people of color into some districts while spreading them throughout others to reduce their ability to elect who they want to represent them.
Congressional districts that were approved in 2021 based on new Census data, with population growth largely driven by Black and Hispanic voters, were hailed by those who voted for them, including Republicans, as “race blind.” The state’s current congressional districts are currently being challenged in federal court.
“I challenge you, when you look in the mirror, where were you?” Reynolds said. “Were you on the right side of history, in favor of voting rights for all, or were you on the wrong side of history, upholding discrimination with this racially gerrymandered map?”
Rep. Ann Johnson, D-Houston, accused Republicans pushing the redistricting effort of racism.
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Rep. Ann Johnson, D-Houston, said the effort is clearly racist.
“Let’s talk about cowardice and cheats,” she said. “If you knew you could win this next election, you wouldn’t be taking this effort to try to steal five seats from elected officials that people of color elected to represent them in Washington, D.C. You shield your racism with your party. You think that people will give you grace on ignorance and arrogance around the party because you can’t admit that the root of all of this is about racism and power.”
The Texas Legislature’s second special session began on August 15 after the conclusion of a 25-day first session in which very little was accomplished because of the quorum break. At least 69 bills were read into the record and referred to committees when the Democrats returned earlier this week, most dealing with emergency management and disaster response related to the July 4 Hill Country floods.
And yet the only item before the House for a vote on Wednesday was redistricting, a point made by many who oppose it.
The second special session has had its share of theatrics. Those who fled the state were assigned DPS surveillance officers to monitor their movement and ensure they returned to the Capitol for floor sessions such as the one held Wednesday. Rep. Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth, declined to sign a permission slip and spent two nights locked in the Texas House.
Rep. Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth, questions HB 4 author Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, on Wednesday.
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Collier, a seven-term state representative and attorney, was later joined by other Democrats who ripped up their permission slips as a sign of solidarity. The state rep filed a petition earlier this week alleging that restraining her in the House is illegal. Republican lawmakers have criticized Collier’s actions as a “sit-in protest” and publicity stunt that had no effect on the outcome of redistricting maps.
Several Democratic lawmakers wore green on Wednesday in support of Collier, who has been wearing a green blazer since she got locked in the House on Monday morning.
The Texas Legislature’s redistricting fight has drawn national attention and prompted California Gov. Gavin Newsom to propose new maps in his state that would add Democratic seats, countering the effort in Texas to preserve President Donald Trump’s narrow GOP majority in the U.S. Congress.
Several amendments were introduced on Wednesday in attempts to establish an independent redistricting commission, get a federal court opinion on the legality of the map, and ensure that the new Congressional districts would not become effective until after the May 2026 elections.
Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, chair of the Democratic Caucus, asked to delay the vote until the Epstein files were released. He was denied and told that his amendment was “not even remotely related” to congressional redistricting.
Democrats also attempted to table redistricting altogether and instead discuss flood bills. They brought up the matter of disaster response by making “parliamentary inquiries” so their statements would be included in the record.
“Why was House Bill 1, the flood relief bill that is the House’s answer to the deadly July 4 flooding that killed over 135 people, not the first order of business of this special session for the Texas House?” asked Rep. Gina Hinojosa, R-Austin. Speaker of the House Dustin Burrows declined to answer, saying that it wasn’t a proper parliamentary inquiry.
Rep. Jon Rosenthal, D-Houston, said an unfair process was employed to “ram this gerrymandered piece of work down the throats of the people of our state.”
“The whole process for this has been a sham from the beginning,” he said. “Any member in here, any leader in this state, who tries to tell you that there were public hearings on this map, that is simply a lie. That is not true.”
“What we have before us today is a committee substitute that was voted out in a formal meeting. They did not hold hearings on this bill. They did not hold hearings on this map.”
Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, urged Democrats and officials from other states to stay vigilant in the redistricting fight.
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Wu urged Texas Democrats and officials in other states to remain vigilant.
“My fellow Americans, if you want to take your country back, if you want to go back to a nation where education actually provided a pathway to success, where hard work and following the rules actually meant something, where just because you were rich and powerful does not mean you get to evade justice, then start fighting,” he said. “Start here.”
“Texas will have to go to the courts, but California, New York, Illinois, Michigan, and many other states, look at what’s happening here,” he added. “Look carefully. This is the future, right here, if you do not act now.”
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April Towery
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The Texas House of Representatives gaveled back into session Wednesday morning with the controversial proposal to redraw congressional maps up for a vote.
Currently House Bill 4, the redistricting legislation, is the only item on the lawmakers’ agenda.
The Republican majority has worked quickly to push the measure through the House, after Democrats broke quorum and left the state for two weeks, stalling all action in the house and killing the first special session.
Gov. Greg Abbott called a second special session hours after the first one was adjourned on Friday, and the Democrats who left the state returned to the House chamber at noon on Monday. That evening, HB 4 cleared the House committee on redistricting by a vote of 12-8, along party lines.
The bill needs to pass two more votes from the entire House before advancing; the final vote could happen on Wednesday as well.
The redistricting bill has also passed from the Texas Senate’s committee on redistricting, and is on the agenda for the full Senate on Thursday.
When the House reconvened, most Democratic members were free of police escorts that have been with them since Monday afternoon.
In an attempt to ensure that Democrats do not try to break quorum again, Republican House leaders would only allow the members who left the state to exit the House chamber if they agreed to a DPS escort.
While most Democrats agreed, state Rep. Nicole Collier of Fort Worth refused. She was locked in the House chamber for a time and eventually also allowed to go to her Capitol office. On Monday, Collier asked a state court to allow her to leave, alleging she’s facing “illegal restraint by the government.” The court has not yet acted on the filing.
Some other Democrats joined Collier on Tuesday, ripping up their signed agreements for the DPS escort and staying the night.
It is not yet clear whether Speaker Dustin Burrows will impose DPS escorts on Democrats at the end of Wednesday’s session.
Republican state leaders are moving fast on the special session, aiming to pass all of Abbott’s priority items and adjourn before the Labor Day weekend.
That leaves only 10 days to pass redistricting and a slew of other bills, including funding for disaster relief in the wake of last month’s deadly Hill Country floods, property tax relief and further restrictions on abortion.
Those measures are all expected to pass due to overwhelming Republican support. Some items will be bipartisan.
One item on Abbott’s list could run into some difficulty: Regulating cannabis products derived from hemp. During the regular session, the Legislature passed a total ban on any products containing THC.
Opponents argued that if the bill became law, it would force thousands of people out of their jobs and cause billions of dollars in economic losses for the state from what has become a booming industry. They also argue it would harm veterans and others who use THC instead of opioids to treat chronic pain, forcing them to buy from drug dealers to get the same relief.
Abbott vetoed the total ban, calling for stricter regulation instead.
The Senate has already passed another version of their total ban of THC. The House version, HB 6, only prohibits the sale of any consumable hemp-derived products to people under 21. HB 6 has not yet been through committee.
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AUSTIN, Texas — The first domino in a growing national redistricting battle is likely to fall Wednesday as the Republican-controlled Texas legislature is expected to pass a new congressional map creating five new winnable seats for the GOP.
The vote follows prodding by President Donald Trump, eager to stave off a midterm defeat that would deprive his party of control of the House of Representatives, and weeks of delays after dozens of Texas Democratic state lawmakers fled the state in protest. Some Democrats returned Monday, only to be assigned round-the-clock police escorts to ensure their attendance at Wednesday’s session. Those who refused to be monitored were confined to the House floor, where they protested on a livestream Tuesday night.
Furious national Democrats have vowed payback for the Texas map, with California’s legislature poised to approve new maps adding more Democratic-friendly seats later this week. The map would still need to be approved by that state’s voters in November.
Normally, states redraw maps once a decade with new census figures. But Trump is lobbying other conservative-controlled states like Indiana and Missouri to also try to squeeze new GOP-friendly seats out of their maps as his party prepares for a difficult midterm election next year.
In Texas, Democrats spent the day before the vote continuing to draw attention to the extraordinary lengths the Republicans who run the legislature were going to ensure it takes place. Democratic state Rep. Nicole Collier started it when she refused to sign what Democrats called the “permission slip” needed to leave the House chamber, a half-page form allowing Department of Public Safety troopers to follow them. She spent Monday night and Tuesday on the House floor, where she set up a livestream while her Democratic colleagues outside had plainclothes officers following them to their offices and homes.
Dallas-area Rep. Linda Garcia said she drove three hours home from Austin with an officer following her. When she went grocery shopping, he went down every aisle with her, pretending to shop, she said. As she spoke to The Associated Press by phone, two unmarked cars with officers inside were parked outside her home.
“It’s a weird feeling,” she said. “The only way to explain the entire process is: It’s like I’m in a movie.”
The trooper assignments, ordered by Republican House Speaker Dustin Burrows, was another escalation of a redistricting battle that has widened across the country. Trump is pushing GOP state officials to tilt the map for the 2026 midterms more in his favor to preserve the GOP’s slim House majority, and Democrats nationally have rallied around efforts to retaliate.
House Minority Leader Gene Wu, from Houston, and state Rep. Vince Perez, of El Paso, stayed overnight with Collier, who represents a minority-majority district in Fort Worth.
On Tuesday, more Democrats returned to the Capitol to tear up the slips they had signed and stay on the House floor, which has a lounge and restrooms for members.
Dallas-area Rep. Cassandra Garcia Hernandez called their protest a “slumber party for democracy,” and she said Democrats were holding strategy sessions on the floor.
“We are not criminals,” Houston Rep. Penny Morales Shaw said.
Collier said having officers shadow her was an attack on her dignity and an attempt to control her movements.
Burrows brushed off Collier’s protest, saying he was focused on important issues, such as providing property tax relief and responding to last month’s deadly floods. His statement Tuesday morning did not mention redistricting, and his office did not immediately respond to other Democrats joining Collier.
“Rep. Collier’s choice to stay and not sign the permission slip is well within her rights under the House Rules,” Burrows said.
Under those rules, until Wednesday’s scheduled vote, the chamber’s doors are locked, and no member can leave “without the written permission of the speaker.”
To do business Wednesday, 100 of 150 House members must be present.
The GOP plan is designed to send five additional Republicans from Texas to the U.S. House. Texas Democrats returned to Austin after Democrats in California launched an effort to redraw their state’s districts to take five seats from Republicans.
Democrats also said they were returning because they expect to challenge the new maps in court.
Republicans issued civil arrest warrants to bring the Democrats back after they left the state Aug. 3, and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott asked the state Supreme Court to oust Wu and several other Democrats from office. The lawmakers also face a fine of $500 for every day they were absent.
Democrats reported different levels of monitoring. Houston Rep. Armando Walle said he wasn’t sure where his police escort was, but there was still a heightened police presence in the Capitol, so he felt he was being monitored closely.
Some Democrats said the officers watching them were friendly. But Austin Rep. Sheryl Cole said in a social media post that when she went on her morning walk Tuesday, the officer following her lost her on the trail, got angry and threatened to arrest her.
Garcia said her 9-year-old son was with her as she drove home, and each time she looked in the rearview mirror, she could see the officer close behind. He came inside a grocery store where she shopped with her son.
“I would imagine that this is the way it feels when you’re potentially shoplifting and someone is assessing whether you’re going to steal,” she said.
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Riccardi reported from Denver. John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, and Sara Cline in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, contributed to this report.
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Democratic state Rep. Nicole Collier from Fort Worth returned to the Texas Capitol on Monday but says she remains locked inside the Capitol because she wouldn’t sign a permission slip to be under escort by the Texas Department of Public Safety.
The escorts for all House Democrats who left the state of Texas last month — preventing a vote on a GOP-led redistricting effort — are meant as a guarantee that they will return to the House by 10 a.m. Wednesday for the next special session.
CBS News Texas spoke with Collier via Zoom on Monday, and she said the situation is wrong — just like the new Congressional maps she and other Democrats have tried to block from being passed.
“I have a right to resist, I have a right to oppose, just like my voters do, just like Texans have a right to challenge government, and that’s what I’m doing. I’m challenging these decisions that are being made. I don’t agree with them,” said Collier.
She continued, adding, “All the Democrats will be working together to get that legal record set so that we can take this fight to the court.”
Collier also said that, according to DPS, she must stay in the House chambers or inside her office at the Capitol.
CBS News Texas has reached out to DPS for comment.
In a statement, the Texas House Democratic Caucus said the police escorts were the “latest Republican tactic to monitor and control Democratic lawmakers following their successful quorum break.”
Collier and dozens of other House Democrats who returned to the Capitol on Monday received a Texas-sized welcome from their supporters as they walked from the rotunda into the House chamber minutes before the House session began around noon.
The Democrats had fled to blue states earlier this month after President Trump suggested the state should redraw its U.S. House district maps to secure more Republican seats. The Democrats had remained out of the state to deny Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott a quorum, temporarily derailing a special legislative session that the governor called to reshape the state’s congressional maps.
The GOP-led redistricting effort would create five more Republican-leaning House seats ahead of the 2026 midterms. Republicans currently have a narrow majority in the House.
Because the Democrats broke quorum for two weeks, there weren’t enough House members to hold the special session. On Monday, there were 120 members present on the floor, but 30 were still absent.
Rep. Gene Wu, the House Democratic Caucus chair, said their efforts to block the potential five Republican-leaning seats have now moved into their second phase, the legal phase.
On Monday evening, the House Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting approved the new maps along party lines by a 12-8 margin. The legislation goes to the full House which could vote on the maps as early as Wednesday.
The Texas Senate redistricting committee approved the maps on Sunday, and the full Senate will take them up sometime this week.
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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the House Republicans are hoping to make up for lost time in a second special session that began Friday and includes all 18 items on the previous agenda, including redistricting, plus a new proposal for legislation to improve youth camp safety.
Abbott’s first special session adjourned last week without signing any new bills into law, due to the absence of a quorum prompted by House Democrats who left the state to avoid voting on new U.S. Congressional boundary lines. The rare mid-decade redistricting initiative was ordered by President Donald Trump to pick up five Republican seats in U.S. Congress ahead of the 2026 primaries.
The Democrats announced that they would return to Texas if the Legislature adjourned and if California introduced a redistricting plan that “would neutralize the Trump-Abbott voter suppression effort.” Both of those demands were met, and a quorum of lawmakers was expected to be in Austin by Monday, August 18.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said his state will call a special election to seek voter approval for a new congressional map that would pick up more blue seats, countering the effort in Texas.
The Democrats still think the proposed Texas redistricting maps are racist and illegal. Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, refiled House Bill 4 on Friday. Democrats say they’re preparing for a legal battle in court.
“Under the advice of legal counsel, Democrats must return to Texas to build a strong public legislative record for the upcoming legal battle against a map that violates both the current Voting Rights Act and the Constitution,” officials with the Texas House Democratic Caucus said in a press release on August 14.
Speaker of the House Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, announced the adjournment of the first special session on Friday morning and told lawmakers not to stray far from the Capitol, as he expected the governor would call a second special session “very, very soon.” A second special session began two hours later, and a quorum was still not present.
“I want to point out that today’s outcome may be a win for Texans and for the rest of the governor’s call,” Burrows said. “If our absent colleagues had shown up this morning, they could have used a few remaining days to stall, or possibly even block, the passage of critical legislation: property tax relief, protections for the unborn, safeguarding women’s private spaces, and reining in runaway local taxes.”
“By following Governor Newsom’s lead, instead of the will of Texans, they have allowed us to reset the clock,” he said, adding that he hopes to accomplish every item on the agenda and adjourn the second special session before Labor Day weekend.
A quorum of at least 100 state representatives and 21 senators — two-thirds of each elected body — is needed not just to pass redistricting legislation but to vote on disaster response, elimination of the STAAR test, THC reform and numerous other measures on Abbott’s special session call.
Scott Braddock, editor of the nonpartisan Texas political newsletter Quorum Report, said on social media last week that the Democrats are “about to come home to lose here while rallying their party to maybe win nationally.”
The Republican-majority Legislature has accused the Democrats of being cowardly and ducking their duties at the expense of important disaster response bills that would help families in the Texas Hill Country who are still recovering from deadly July 4 floods.
If you don’t show up to do your job, you lose your job.
Same thing should happen for the derelict Democrats. pic.twitter.com/BfmJu3aYzn
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) August 14, 2025
The Democrats have said they wanted to consider flood legislation but Abbott pulled a fast one and instead made redistricting the top priority.
“We do not believe stealing five seats to attempt to determine the outcome of the next election is the right thing to bring us back for,” said Rep. Ann Johnson, D-Houston, in a Zoom livestream from Chicago last week. “Yes, we are in the position of breaking quorum, which is an extraordinary and exceptional act but it is the only tool that we have in our toolbox, as the minority, to try and defeat [redistricting].”
The Dems would ultimately like Abbott to set aside redistricting, which technically doesn’t have to be taken up until the 2030 Census. Several have pushed for an independent redistricting commission to redraw the lines.
“I’ll offer it again and if Governor Abbott wants to accept that bill and put it up for a hearing, we can find out if both sides are really willing to do this,” Johnson said. “I would love it if the solution to all of this is that the people rise up and say, ‘Hey, politicians, stop drawing your lines. We’re going to draw them for you.’ To me, that’s the ultimate win.”
Rep. Jon Rosenthal, D-Houston, is also on board with an independent redistricting commission.
“From my perspective, we should be doing what the people want us to do,” Rosenthal said, noting that about 99 percent of those who spoke at public hearings before the quorum break were against mid-decade redistricting. “I would love to see federal law enact a nonpartisan redistricting commission process.”
The redistricting conversation isn’t just about Texas, the lawmakers said.
“One of our big pushes, one of our big priorities, is for this to become a national conversation,” Rosenthal said. “Redistricting in Texas in the midterm just for the purpose of rigging an election will affect the entire country.”
Representatives from both parties have indicated they’re not backing down.
“Trump thought he could easily get his way in Texas with compliant Republicans, but Democrats fought back ferociously and took the fight to Trump across America,” Texas Dems said in a statement. “We will return to the House floor and to the courthouse with a clear message: the fight to protect voting rights has only just begun.”
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April Towery
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When it came time for Mihaela Plesa, the vice-chair of the Texas House Democratic Caucus, to decide whether to flee the state with dozens of her fellow Democratic legislators, earlier this month, she felt torn. On the one hand, Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, had proposed a radical plan to redraw the state’s congressional maps to favor Republicans. By leaving the state, Plesa and her colleagues could deprive the Texas House of the two-thirds quorum required to approve the maneuver. On the other hand, Plesa wondered how she would explain a step that could undercut the appeals to bipartisanship that had helped her win election in a politically divided district anchored in Plano, a Dallas suburb. She also was skeptical that escaping the state was a winning tactic. Any success in denying Republicans a quorum would almost certainly be temporary.
As Plesa waffled, her husband put on the song “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” by the Clash. It was a joke, and they laughed, but one lyric resonated: “If I go, there will be trouble / And if I stay, it will be double.”
Plesa went. That’s how she found herself at a union hall in a Chicago suburb the other day, standing in front of a large Lone Star flag, and attacking Abbott’s tactics as a “power grab.” The Governor’s move, undertaken at Donald Trump’s behest, was a clear ploy to help Republicans preserve their narrow majority in the House by increasing the likelihood of the Party capturing five additional congressional seats in the 2026 midterms. The redistricting was made even more controversial by the fact that it was happening long before the next census. “This is not just about Texas or Texans,” Plesa said in front of a battery of television cameras. “This is about the pillars of democracy as we know it.”
More than fifty Democratic legislators decamped on August 3rd in what is known as a quorum break. (The tactic was first used in Texas in 1870 by thirteen state senators who objected to a Radical Republican plan to create a state militia and increase the governor’s powers in a time of lawlessness and anti-Black violence.) What started as an attempt to pressure Abbott into withdrawing the redistricting plan has since become a mission with all the subtlety of Paul Revere’s ride, as the Texas lawmakers shout a warning to all who will listen. “We’re no longer on the path to authoritarianism. We are there,” Representative Gina Hinojosa told me after flying from Chicago to Sacramento to meet with Gavin Newsom, the California governor, and other prominent Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi. “The only way that we have any hope of getting out of this is if every freedom-loving American does everything in their power to push back.”
The plan was to stay out of Texas until August 19th, when Abbott’s thirty-day special session was scheduled to end. Plesa had packed a large suitcase, a smaller carry-on, and a work bag that included her cords and chargers; she’d brought contact numbers for constituent services and professional clothes for being in the public eye. She also had made sure to bring an intricately etched Romanian gold coin that once belonged to her grandmother, who had emigrated from Bucharest as Nicolae Ceauşescu consolidated one-party rule. To Plesa, recent moves by Abbott and Trump echoed stories that she had heard while growing up, and the coin telegraphed her grandmother’s spirit, helping to keep her grounded. “She was a little bit of a rabble-rouser and a rule-breaker,” Plesa said, “and she always told me, ‘Don’t make yourself smaller or softer for the world.’ ”
The majority of the Texas Democrats had flown by charter plane to Illinois, and were bused to a conference center in St. Charles, about forty miles west of downtown Chicago, but Plesa had flown commercial to Albany, where she and several colleagues met with Kathy Hochul, New York’s Democratic governor. Plesa quickly discovered that the exodus was big news. She spoke at a press conference, seated beside Hochul, and appeared on several cable and network television shows. As a self-described “small-town politician out of Dallas,” she found it surreal. “I mean, people had heard of us,” she said. After she met the Reverend Al Sharpton and appeared on his radio show, she thought, “Oh, my God, this is insane.”
Plesa then joined her colleagues in Illinois. She arrived late on August 5th and fell into her bed at the hotel where many of the Texas legislators were staying, only to wake early the next morning to a bomb threat that forced the evacuation of the building. “I always knew this was serious,” she said later, “but I never thought, Wow, my life is actually going to be in danger.” It was the first of two bomb threats, amid other forms of intimidation and harassment.
Despite being away from home, the Texas Democrats say they have been working harder than ever. Plesa’s days have been dominated by media appearances and strategy sessions, twice-a-day remote meetings with her four staff members back in Texas, and conferences with two sets of attorneys, who offered advice when the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, filed a lawsuit to declare thirteen Democratic seats vacant, including Plesa’s. Gene Wu, a Houston representative who chairs the Democratic caucus, pointed to the circles under his eyes and told me that he is sleeping no more than four hours a night. “Every five seconds, there’s either a crisis or another interview,” he said. “Everyone’s very, very tired.” He noted that the legislators are paid just seventy-two hundred dollars a year—“pre-tax,” he added—and “if they’re not at home, they’re not making money.”
From the beginning, as Abbott criticized the departed Democrats as “derelict,” Plesa realized that she needed to make calls to constituents, to let them know “that I haven’t abandoned them.” She described what she was doing and why, telling her precinct chairs that Abbott had wrongly made redistricting his top priority after a call from Trump. Her pitch: “Are we working for the people of Texas or are we working for Donald Trump? We had nine hearings on redistricting. We had two on flooding. That tells you the priorities.” She pointed to the limited national attention given to the 2023 redistricting effort in North Carolina, which, in a narrowly divided state, turned a U.S. House of Representatives delegation of seven Republicans and seven Democrats into a G.O.P. majority of ten seats to four, enough to give control of the House to the Republicans. (Opponents are contesting the G.O.P. move in federal court.) “It’s like that famous quote—you know, ‘First they came for this group, and I said nothing,’ ” she told me.
At the press conference at the union hall, Wu opened by laying out the latest developments: John Cornyn, the Republican U.S. senator from Texas, had announced that the F.B.I. would help locate the Democrats, and Paxton, who will challenge Cornyn in next year’s primary, had declared that he would seek their arrest. Wu called the moves “laughable.” Plesa pointed to Vice-President J. D. Vance’s trip to Indiana, where he lobbied Republicans to redistrict, and she noted the counterattack in Democratic-run states, such as an effort by Newsom to create new maps likely to produce five Democratic seats in California. (A few days later, Newsom confirmed that he will ask voters in a November special election to abandon the current maps for the next three congressional elections. “We cannot unilaterally disarm,” he said.)
To demonstrate that the fight had grown beyond Texas, the lawmakers then directed their media audience to two large screens that showed a live stream of a press conference in California, where Newsom, Pelosi, and the Democratic leadership of the state legislature had just met with a half-dozen Texas lawmakers. Representative Ann Johnson, the first Texan to speak, warned of “the danger that is coming” by appeasing Trump, and drew a comparison that Plesa had also been making to reporters. “You-all remember,” Johnson said, “that Trump called Georgia and said, ‘Boys, I need eleven thousand votes.’ To their credit, those Republicans said, ‘No, we’re not doing that. That crosses a line.’ When Trump called Governor Greg Abbott and Texas Republicans and said, ‘Boys, I need you to steal five seats,’ they said, ‘Does July work for you?’ ”
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Peter Slevin
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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The Ohio Supreme Court let stand late Monday ballot language that will describe this fall’s Issue 1 as requiring gerrymandering, when the proposal is intended to do the opposite.
In a 4-3 ruling, the high court ordered two of eight disputed sections of the ballot description rewritten, while upholding the other six the issue’s backers had contested. The court’s three Democratic justices dissented. The ballot language was approved by the Republican-controlled Ohio Ballot Board.
Citizens Not Politicians, the group behind the Nov. 5 amendment, brought the lawsuit last month, asserting the language “may be the most biased, inaccurate, deceptive, and unconstitutional” the state has ever seen.
The bipartisan coalition’s proposal calls for replacing Ohio’s troubled political map-making system with a 15-member, citizen-led commission of Republicans, Democrats and independents. The proposal emerged after seven different versions of congressional and legislative maps created after the 2020 Census were declared unconstitutionally gerrymandered to favor Republicans.
In Monday’s opinion, the court’s majority noted that it can only invalidate language approved by the ballot board if it finds the wording would “mislead, deceive, or defraud the voters.” The majority found most of the language included in the approved summary and title didn’t do that, but merely described the extensive amendment in detail.
The two sections that justices said were mischaracterized involve when a lawsuit would be able to be filed challenging the new commission’s redistricting plan and the ability of the public to provide input on the map-making process.
In a statement, Citizens Not Politicians said they disagreed with much of the decision, but agreed with justices’ conclusions that portions of the language were “inaccurate,” “defective” and amounted to “argumentation” against Issue 1.
“The Ohio Supreme Court ruled seven times that politicians broke the law with unconstitutional gerrymanders, and the Ohio Supreme Court ruled today that politicians broke the law with lies about our Issue 1 amendment to end the gerrymandering they hold dear,” the campaign said.
The group added: “Politicians are lying and doing everything they can to confuse voters.”
Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy and Justices Patrick Fischer, Patrick DeWine and Joseph Deters joined the majority opinion, while Justices Michael Donnelly, Melody Stewart and Jennifer Brunner dissented.
Fischer wrote a separate concurring opinion in which he defended language voters will now see in November. The measure’s description will say that the commission created by Issue 1 is “required to gerrymander the boundaries of state legislative and congressional districts to favor the two largest political parties.” He said the language, proposed at the last minute by Republican state Sen. Theresa Gavarone, is accurate because the panel will have to create maps that ensure certain political outcomes.
Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who chairs the ballot board, praised Monday’s ruling.
“This decision is a huge win for Ohio voters, who deserve an honest explanation of what they’re being asked to decide,” he said in a statement, adding that the approved description will help voters sort out what’s actually being proposed amid a barrage of expected television advertising.
What to know about the 2024 Election
The exact language of the constitutional amendment also will be posted at polling locations.
LaRose has reconvened the ballot board for Wednesday morning to rewrite the two sections ruled unconstitutional, just as it had to do last year with portions of an amendment that enshrined access to abortion in Ohio’s state constitution. That issue passed easily, despite the ballot language dispute.
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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi should work quickly to fulfill the court-ordered redrawing of some legislative districts to ensure more equitable representation for Black residents, attorneys for voting rights groups said in a new court filing Friday.
The attorneys also said it’s important to hold special elections in the reconfigured state House and Senate districts on Nov. 5 — the same day as the general election for federal offices and some state judicial posts.
Having special legislative elections in 2025 “would burden election administrators and voters and would likely lead to low turnout if not outright confusion,” wrote the attorneys for the Mississippi NAACP and several Black residents in a lawsuit challenging the composition of state House and Senate districts drawn in 2022.
Attorneys for the all Republican state Board of Election Commissioners said in court papers filed Wednesday that redrawing some legislative districts in time for this November’s election is impossible because of tight deadlines to prepare ballots.
Three federal judges on July 2 ordered Mississippi legislators to reconfigure some districts, finding that the current ones dilute the power of Black voters in three parts of the state. The judges said they want new districts to be drawn before the next regular legislative session begins in January.
Mississippi held state House and Senate elections in 2023. Redrawing some districts would create the need for special elections to fill seats for the rest of the four-year term.
The judges ordered legislators to draw majority-Black Senate districts in and around DeSoto County in the northwestern corner of the state and in and around Hattiesburg in the south, and a new majority-Black House district in Chickasaw and Monroe counties in the northeastern part of the state.
The order does not create additional districts. Rather, it requires legislators to adjust the boundaries of existing ones. Multiple districts could be affected.
Legislative and congressional districts are updated after each census to reflect population changes from the previous decade. Mississippi’s population is about 59% white and 38% Black.
In the legislative redistricting plan adopted in 2022 and used in the 2023 elections, 15 of the 52 Senate districts and 42 of the 122 House districts are majority-Black. Those are 29% of Senate districts and 34% of House districts.
Historical voting patterns in Mississippi show that districts with higher populations of white residents tend to lean toward Republicans and that districts with higher populations of Black residents tend to lean toward Democrats.
Lawsuits in several states have challenged the composition of congressional or state legislative districts drawn after the 2020 census.
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Mark Oprea
Council President Blaine Griffin in Council Chambers last year. Griffin will be overseeing a redrawing of Cleveland’s warn boundaries to be wrapped up in December.
Ward 8 Councilman Michael Polensek recalls 2013 with a slight distaste in his mouth.
It was a year the city’s then 19 wards were set to be chiseled down to 17. Cleveland was still losing population, and then Council President Martin Sweeney had to follow a charter amendment passed five years before that required boundaries to be redrawn every decade with the number of seats tied to how many people lived in Cleveland. In 2013, that meant two politicians would lose their jobs.
The result was some high octane in-fighting and crosstalk bickering. Jay Westbrook, the veteran council member who backed the 2008 charter law with enthusiasm, opted to retire to “stand up for the change I sought and let someone else pick up the torch.”
Sweeney, accused of influencing the redraw of the wards map to back then Councilman Eugene Miller—who was, at the time, embroiled in a DUI scandal—found himself in a similar pickle as Westbrook. He was thus accused of imbalancing the Black and Hispanic neighborhoods he had supposedly promised to help.
In 2013, Sweeney stepped down from his role, the Plain Dealer reported, to “set the whole record straight on the whole redistricting thing.”
“He’s a sore loser,” Polensek said at the time. “He lost at what he tried to do. And now it’s nothing but bitterness.”
Eleven years later, Council is six months away from another relook at Cleveland’s ward boundaries. With the help of the same consultants who drew the map a decade ago, it will decide how certain neighborhoods should be represented by elected officials. And eleven years later, as those hired guns begin interviewing its members, Council is again approaching the inevitable with feelings of dread in their back pockets.
Especially those who recall 2013.
“I told [the consultants] don’t mess up, don’t screw up my neighborhood again,” Polensek told Scene on Monday.
“You have an opportunity to correct the mistakes that were made, the terrible lines that were drawn,” he said. “To disenfranchise east side and neighborhoods of color in the ethnic neighborhoods. That’s what they did.”
Hired by City Hall three times to re-analyze its ward boundaries—in 1981, 2009 and 2013—the consultant team, led by 85-year-old analyst Bob Dykes at Triad Research Group, will have yet another opporunity to more carefully match Cleveland’s changing population numbers and neighborhoods with fairer, more accurate representation.
All while doing its best to steer clear of gerrymandering claims. Some on Council in 2013 accused Sweeney of splintering Ward 14’s Hispanic population, curtailing it from 41 to 37 percent, until a successful pushback kept it more substantive. (A move that would undeniably help Councilwoman Jasmin Santana, the ward’s first Latina leader, secure her seat in 2017.)
“Two of our primary goals are to have natural boundaries and keep neighborhoods together. Community involvement will also play a key role in redistricting,” Council President Blaine Griffin wrote in a press release. “We are eager to begin the work now to allow us time to get this right—and deliver maps that accurately reflect the needs of Cleveland’s diverse neighborhoods.” (Griffin was out of the office Monday and unavailable to comment for this article.)
As will go the process, Dykes and his team of three, including architect Kent Whitley and former Cleveland State professor Mark Stalling, will have six months to hand over a redrawn map to Griffin. Council will vote on the revision. All minding that two of them, whomever they may be, will either lose their jobs or have to run for election in a different, newly created ward.
That’s created a tiny panic in those who both trust their constituents yet find next year’s election too vague to pin down.
“I don’t know what district I’m running. I don’t know what my ward number is going to be,” Ward 13 Councilman Kris Harsh told Scene. “I don’t know what my boundary is going to be. And I haven’t got any indications about what they might be. So I’m kind of waiting to see the map like everybody else.”
Next week, on July 11, Harsh said he’s hosting his first fundraiser in his council tenure, both as a bid to raise thousands of dollars before next June and to preempt what could be an eventual political threat. In early June, City Council doubled the limit that individuals and political action committees could contribute.
Like Polensek, Harsh had his concerns that the new map could tilt neighborhoods’ identities, thus leading to a possible drop in what’s an already low voter turnout for council races.
Calls to Dykes and Whitney were not returned on Monday. Salling said that his team vowed to “honor those boundaries” that Polensek claimed were rocked by 2013’s redistricting—namely the Black east side wards. He said the trio was committed to following the Voting Rights Act, the 1965 federal law passed to prevent, to the best of its ability, the disenfranchisement of minority communities.
Regardless, Salling was blunt about the inevitable. Two fewer wards meant two fewer councilpeople. Two fewer councilpeople carried a world of implications—more campaign dollars needed to run elsewhere, changed dynamic in Council Chambers and the unavoidable sting when one’s job is threatened.
“You know, somebody’s going to lose,” Salling said. “Hopefully it’s somebody that doesn’t really mind losing or that obviously maybe doesn’t carry the popular vote as strongly as other council people. But, you know, that, that’s sort of out of my domain.”
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Mark Oprea
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ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — A new congressional district map has been revealed by the New York State Legislature. The newest map comes 24 hours after lawmakers rejected a map drawn by the Independent Redistricting Commission.
Lawmakers must still vote on the newest map. The legislature looked at the Special Masters map from two years ago and commission’s version to create the map released on Wednesday.
Some changes were made to Capital Region districts.
In the 21st district in the North Country, it will no longer includes parts of Rensselaer County. Schoharie County will now be part of that district. The 20th district will now include parts of northern Rensselaer County, and the rest of the county will be in the 19th district.
The legislature plans on voting on this map on Wednesday.
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Courtney Ward
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Photo: Getty Images/Mint Images RF
The 2024 election cycle just got a little more complicated for New Yorkers.
On Monday, Albany lawmakers officially rejected the new congressional map that had been proposed by a bipartisan panel from the the state’s independent redistricting commission, setting the stage for the Legislature to draw its own district lines and potentially shake up some crucial races. The New York State Senate voted 40-17 and the State Assembly voted 99-47 to defeat the map in the latest twist of a yearslong political saga.
Several members of the Legislature had expressed concerns with the map, which was a slight modification from a 2022 version that had been drawn by a special master after New York’s highest court ruled that Democrats’ original proposal was a gerrymander. Though the redistricting commission’s proposal was not significantly different from the 2022 version, it would likely have shored shore up the districts held by two Hudson Valley incumbents: Congressman Pat Ryan, a Democrat, and Congressman Marc Molinaro, a Republican. It would also would have potentially weakened Congressman Brandon Williams’s electoral prospects by adding more Democratic-friendly territory to his district. State Senator James Skoufis criticized the commission’s decision to split Orange County and said the legislature should reject the new map, calling it “a disgrace.”
And while U.S. House Majority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who was vocal about his opposition to the the map drawn by the special master in 2022, stopped short of calling for the legislature to redraw the districts, his office said the new map “ignores or exacerbates” many of the problems previously raised.
By opting to produce its own map, the Democratic-led Legislature has the chance to influence several races ahead of an election cycle where the path to control of the House of Representatives is expected to run through New York — again. As things stand now, the Cook Political Report currently lists four seats held by freshman Republicans seeking reelection as toss-ups, a number that could potentially increase.
While while this is a prime opportunity to boost their party’s chances in November, Democrats’ efforts could also backfire. If lawmakers attempt a significant gerrymander, they risk the map getting challenged in court by Republicans and potentially even struck down, a repeat of 2022. There is speculation that because of those limitations, the Legislature will opt for only modest changes to the map, not drastic ones.
Regardless of their final decision, the Legislature will have to act with haste. Ballot petitioning in New York was set to begin on Tuesday, meaning that campaigns will start collecting signatures for their candidates to run in districts that could potentially change within days.
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Nia Prater
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MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin Republicans made a last-ditch effort Tuesday to avoid having the liberal-controlled state Supreme Court put in place new legislative district boundaries for the November election.
The Republican-controlled Senate passed new Senate and Assembly maps just over an hour after unveiling them, not giving the public or Democrats a chance to review them ahead of their release. Democrats said they didn’t have time to analyze the proposal before the vote.
And Assembly Republicans were discussing passing maps as proposed by Gov. Tony Evers without any changes. That could stop the Wisconsin Supreme Court from ordering maps that were even worse for Republicans.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu said that the new maps approved by the Senate were the same as what Evers proposed, but with changes to reduce the number of Republican incumbents who would have to face one another in November.
The governor’s map was “clearly a partisan attack on us,” LeMahieu said.
“We just wanted to make things somewhat fair,” he said.
In yet another twist, Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said he supports passing the maps as proposed by Evers with no changes. He said Republicans can win under the lines drawn by Evers.
“We would basically be giving Gov. Evers a huge win,” Vos said shortly after Evers concluded his State of the State speech. “Adopting his maps, stopping the lawsuit seems like something to me we could agree on, but I’m waiting on Gov. Evers to get back to us.”
Evers’ spokesperson did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
It was unclear whether the Senate would approve the Evers maps with no changes. Vos said the Assembly may vote on those maps Tuesday night or Wednesday.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court last month tossed the current Republican-drawn district boundaries as unconstitutional and ordered new maps. Evers, Republicans, Democrats and others submitted maps that two consultants hired by the court are now reviewing. Their recommendation is due Feb. 1, and the court is expected to release new maps shortly after.
But the court said it would defer to the Legislature if it could pass maps that Evers would sign into law.
Evers and Democrats appeared unlikely to back the new Republican maps passed by the Senate which made changes to what he proposed.
“This is about one thing: Republicans desperately trying to retain power,” Evers’ spokesperson Britt Cudaback posted before the maps were released. “Full stop.”
Cudaback said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that any maps that differ from the maps as Evers submitted them to the Supreme Court “aren’t the governor’s maps. Period.”
If Evers vetoes the new Republican maps, it ”will just show his true intent of trying to disenfranchise Republican voters around the state,” LeMahieu said.
Democrats said the maps, detailed in a 169-page amendment, were an attempt by Republicans to protect their majorities that sit at 22-11 in the Senate and 64-35 in the Assembly.
“This is not a serious proposal that we have before us,” Democratic Sen. Mark Spreitzer said. “These maps make changes that protect Republican incumbents.”
The Senate passed the bill 17-14, with four Republicans joining 10 Democrats against. No Democrats voted for it.
All maps under consideration by the Wisconsin Supreme Court are expected to shrink Republican majorities.
Under the Evers map, Republicans would have a seven-seat majority in the Assembly, down from 29 seats now, and just a one-seat edge in the Senate, based on an analysis by Marquette University Law School research fellow John D. Johnson. His analysis used a statistical model to predict the results of the 2022 state legislative election had they taken place in the newly proposed districts.
LeMahieu said the changes Republicans were proposing to Evers’ maps would not affect the partisan breakdown of each district.
This isn’t the first time Republicans have tried to take control of redistricting. In September, three months before the court ordered new maps, the Assembly passed a sweeping plan that takes the power of drawing maps out of the hands of lawmakers and gives it to nonpartisan staff.
But Evers rejected the plan, calling it “bogus,” even though it largely resembled a nonpartisan redistricting plan he’s pushed for years.
It was that bill that Senate Republicans amended before passing it Tuesday. It was passed just hours before Evers delivered his State of the State address.
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MADISON, Wis. — Two consultants hired to analyze new legislative boundary lines in Wisconsin after the state’s Supreme Court tossed the current Republican-drawn maps will be paid up to $100,000 each in taxpayer money under terms of their contracts made public Thursday.
Each consultant will be paid an hourly rate of $450, up to $100,000 total, but the state director of courts has the authority to exceed the maximum amount if she determines it is necessary, according to the contracts. Republican lawmakers last year signed contracts with attorneys who could receive more than $1.8 million in taxpayer funds to defend the current maps.
Wisconsin is one of more than a dozen states currently wrestling with challenges to redistricting maps that were redrawn following the release of the 2020 U.S. census and first applied to the 2022 elections. Court challenges could result in new U.S. House and state legislative maps before the November election.
In Wisconsin, the court last month ruled that the current legislative maps are unconstitutional because many districts aren’t contiguous. The court ordered that either the Legislature pass new maps that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is willing to sign into law, or the court will proceed with adopting its own map.
The consultants were hired to analyze maps submitted to the court by the Legislature, Evers and others, and report back on their findings.
The consultants — who have the authority to recommend changes to the submitted maps or to create their own — have had a hand in reshaping districts in other states.
Jonathan Cervas, of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, redrew New York’s congressional and state Senate maps after a court struck down ones adopted by the Democratic-led Legislature. Bernard Grofman, of the University of California, Irvine, helped redraw Virginia’s federal and state legislative districts after a bipartisan commission deadlocked.
Conservative justices also objected to the hiring of the consultants, saying their selection, the legal authority to appoint them and their responsibilities all raise serious questions.
The maps from parties to the lawsuit are due by Jan. 12, with supporting arguments due 10 days later. Reports from the consultants are due by Feb. 1, with responses a week later. That means the court will release new maps likely sometime in late February or early March unless the Legislature acts first.
The state elections commission has said maps must be in place by March 15 if the new districts are to be in play for the November election.
Republican lawmakers last week asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to stay and reconsider its 4-3 ruling throwing out the GOP-drawn maps. Thursday was the deadline for parties to the lawsuit to submit their arguments.
The court is unlikely to reverse its ruling. The liberal four-justice majority voted in favor of ordering new maps, with the three conservative justices dissenting.
The legislative electoral maps drawn by the Legislature in 2011 cemented the Republican Party’s majorities, which now stand at 64-35 in the Assembly and 22-11 — a supermajority — in the Senate.
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Republican Sen. Ron Johnson won reelection in 2022 in Wisconsin by just over 25,000 votes — the latest slim-majority victory in the state, which gave its 10 Electoral College votes to former President Donald Trump in 2016 with a victory of 22,000 votes and then flipped to President Joe Biden in 2020, who won the state by around 20,000 votes.
But despite the state’s history of winning elections on the margins, Republicans dominate the state legislature, with 64 Republicans and 35 Democrats in the Wisconsin Assembly. The groundbreaking ruling in late December by the Wisconsin Supreme Court throwing out the GOP-drawn district lines could threaten that control — and change the state’s political landscape.
Though Republicans told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the U.S. Supreme Court will have the “last word” on the matter, now hinting at taking the fight to defend Wisconsin’s electoral maps, which have consistently favored the GOP, to the higher court.
“We will pursue all federal issues arising out of the redistricting litigation at the U.S. Supreme Court,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said in a statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel following the state Supreme Court’s decision.
Ruthie Hauge/The Capital Times via AP
The 4-3 ruling, issued Friday, deemed the current GOP-drawn lines unconstitutional and cites a violation of the state constitution’s requirement of “contiguous territories” in districts. Set to be enforced in March 2024, the revised map will put all 132 state lawmakers up for reelection in a pivotal year, providing Democrats with an opportunity to challenge the Republican stronghold on the state’s legislature.
With a potential shift to a more evenly divided legislature, the new map could hold implications for key issues such as abortion, previously rejected by Republicans for inclusion on the 2024 ballot.
Nicole Safar, executive director at Law Forward, a nonprofit law firm representing the 19 Democratic voters in the lawsuit filed against the current map, said tossing the gerrymandered map will give voters more of a voice in the legislative process.
“I think in the next legislative session in 2025 and 2026, we will see a different kind of ability for the citizens to impact the policies that our legislature makes. We’ll see real organizing, lobbying and campaigning around things like access to abortion, gun safety and public education,” Safar said.
The lawsuit was filed in August, shortly after state Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz was sworn in, which tilted the Wisconsin Supreme Court from a conservative to a liberal majority. The race was the most expensive state Supreme Court election in American history, with Democrats spending over $50 million. In television advertisements, Protasiewicz called the maps “unfair” and “rigged” and spoke about her support of abortion rights.
Writing the dissent on the lawsuit, Chief Justice Annette Ziegler, a conservative, drew on Protasiewicz’s past statements. Ziegler argued that liberals were only hearing the gerrymandering case due to their current majority.
There “appears to be evidence of a partisan and political, rather than a reasoned and restrained, approach, and thus departs from the constitutional role of the judiciary,” Ziegler wrote.
Republicans contended that the redesigned map would lead to the creation of more Democrat-friendly districts before the 2024 election and had called for Protasiewicz to recuse herself from the case.
Speaker Vos even threatened impeachment if Protasiewicz refused. However, the Republican leader later stated during a news conference in October that they would temporarily drop impeachment charges and appeal any decisions to the U.S. Supreme Court if the state Supreme Court ruled on Republican-drawn maps and other conservative causes.
Now that the state Supreme Court has ruled to toss the political map, the state legislature and Wisconsin’s Democratic Gov. Tony Evers are expected to agree on a new map.
If an agreement can’t be reached, the state’s Supreme Court will step in and consider maps based on the partisan makeup of the state, as per Justice Jill Karofsky’s opinion.
Evers, who has largely relied on his veto abilities to block the Republicans’ agenda throughout his tenure, said in a statement: “It’s clear to me that a Republican-controlled Legislature that has consistently gerrymandered itself into comfortable, partisan majorities for more than a decade is incapable of preparing fair, nonpartisan maps deserving of the people of this state. I agree with the Court’s determination that these maps are unconstitutional because the districts lack contiguity. Wisconsin is a purple state, and I look forward to submitting maps to the Court to consider and review that reflect and represent the makeup of our state. And I remain as optimistic as ever that, at long last, the gerrymandered maps Wisconsinites have endured for years might soon be history.”
According to Mark Gaber, senior director at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan group that seeks to curb partisanship in redistricting, a new map will likely not heavily favor either Republicans or Democrats.
“Wisconsin is a politically divided state with very close elections, with down-ballot races being even closer,” Gaber said.
And while Democrats are celebrating the redrawing of the state’s district lines, Gaber said the ruling should be viewed as a win for both parties because the new map will be “more representative of the true electorate,” which he noted as deeply purple.
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MADISON, Wis. — Republican lawmakers have asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to stay and reconsider its finding that the state’s legislative district boundaries are unconstitutional.
Attorneys representing a host of Republican state Senators filed a motion with the court Thursday saying they can’t meet the court’s Jan. 12 deadline for new maps. They also argue the court didn’t listen to their arguments in the case and didn’t give them a chance to respond to the deadline for new boundaries. They asked the court to stay all proceedings until it decides on the motion.
The legislative electoral maps drawn by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2011 cemented the party’s majorities, which now stand at 64-35 in the Assembly and a 22-11 supermajority in the Senate.
Democrats filed a lawsuit in August arguing the maps are unconstitutional and give the GOP an unfair advantage. They filed the action a day after liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz was sworn in, flipping the court’s majority to 4-3 liberal control.
The court ruled on Dec. 22 that the current boundaries are unconstitutional because they aren’t contiguous. Many districts include sections of land that aren’t connected, resulting in maps that resemble Swiss cheese.
The court ordered the Legislature and other parties involved in the lawsuit to produce new maps by Jan. 12, with supporting arguments due 10 days later. The court likely will release new maps sometime in late February or early March unless the Legislature acts first.
State elections officials have said maps must be in place by March 15 to be in play for the 2024 election.
The Supreme Court gave attorneys representing the Democrats until Jan. 4 to file responses to the motion. Doug Poland, one of their attorneys, declined comment Friday afternoon. Two other attorneys representing the Democrats, Daniel Lenz and Jeffrey Mandell, didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
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The State of Wisconsin’s redistricting process has been fraught for years, facing government deadlocks and interventions from the federal courts.
The fall 2023 legislative session marked yet another addition to this prickly timeline when Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos announced a redistricting bill he said tracked closely with an idea Democrats had long supported: “An Iowa-style nonpartisan redistricting” model that would allow the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau to write new legislative maps.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers quickly dismissed the legislation as “bogus,” prompting Vos to respond in a Sept. 15, 2023 news release: Democrats “rejected our (Iowa model) proposal to enact the very plan they originally endorsed.”
So is Vos correct that Democrats are now opposing the very idea they advocated for years?
First, what is the Iowa model and how does it compare to the GOP plan?
In response to an email from PolitiFact Wisconsin seeking backup, Vos’ spokesperson, Angela Joyce wrote: “There have to be some differences as our Constitution is different than Iowa’s, and in listening to Democrats’ concerns, we made some amendments to the legislation.”
Let’s start with the Iowa system.
Since 1980, Iowa’s legislative districts have been drawn by nonpartisan staff with their Legislative Services Agency. Under Iowa law, legislative maps cannot be redrawn with the intent of favoring a political party, incumbent state legislator or member of Congress. Key provisions include:
The state’s Legislative Services Agency holds three public hearings on a proposed set of maps, then submits a report on the maps to the state’s legislature, which may vote to approve or reject them. No amendments are allowed other than corrections to errors.
If lawmakers reject the first proposal, the agency has 35 days to propose a new set of maps addressing the reasons the first set were voted down. This process can happen one more time, with the agency offering a third proposal. If the process makes its way to a third proposal, the legislation can be amended — or lawmakers can draft their own set. If the Legislature adopts its own maps, they are subject to review by the state Supreme Court, which in Iowa is composed of appointed, rather than elected, justices. If the legislature fails to adopt maps the Iowa Supreme Court adopts a plan.
The GOP’s plan is almost identical to what Democrats proposed as early as 2003 in its key element: transferring map-drawing authority away from partisans and to the state’s Legislative Reference Bureau.
The Republicans’ proposal has some small variations to accommodate for differences between the states’ constitutions, according to a memo prepared by the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau.
Per the memo, here are key ways they are similar:
Both Iowa and the GOP’s proposed legislation prohibit the drawing agency from using data on incumbent legislator addresses, voters’ political affiliations, previous election results and demographic information.
Both create a redistricting advisory commission to hold public hearings, report on map proposals, and perform other duties.
The Iowa legislature’s feedback must, to the extent allowed by Iowa’s statutes and the Constitution, be incorporated into the second or third map proposal. If a map proposal is vetoed by the governor, the governor’s feedback must be incorporated into the second or third map proposal. The GOP’s proposed legislation has similar requirements for incorporating the legislature and governor’s feedback between map proposals.
Why are Democrats critical of the GOP plan?
Democrats point to a provision in the Republican legislation for what happens if the attempt to agree on maps gets to a third try. Evers’ most recent proposals required a three-fourths supermajority to approve changes made on the third attempt. Under the Republican plan, a simple majority could approve changes in the third attempt. Evers wants the supermajority to ensure that one party does not ultimately enact a partisan gerrymander at the end of the process
As the Journal Sentinel reported in a Sept. 14 article:
“Democratic lawmakers who have worked on redistricting bills are put off by the fact that the GOP proposal is most similar to a bill from 2015 — rather than more recent proposals that have been adjusted and still received support from a handful of Republicans…..
“Under the GOP bill, the Legislative Reference Bureau would submit maps to the Legislature, which could reject the first two proposals. Once a third proposal is introduced, lawmakers could amend it with a simple majority. It would then require the governor’s approval, and would likely end up in the courts without an agreement — unless the Legislature were able to override the governor’s veto.
“Recent bills, and Evers’ budget proposal, would have required a three-fourths majority to approve the final maps.”
Why do Vos and other Assembly GOP members want this now?
Passage of the legislation would bypass lawsuits before the state Supreme Court that seek to rewrite the current Republican-favorable maps that were adopted in 2021.
With the election of Justice Janet Protasiewicz earlier this year, liberals hold a majority on the court for the first time in years. Protasiewicz rebuffed calls by Vos and others to recuse herself from the lawsuits – a move which Vos has warned could lead to her impeachment after she called the current maps “rigged” while campaigning for the court seat. The court heard oral arguments Nov. 21.
Our ruling
In a news release, Vos claimed Evers and Democrats “rejected our (Iowa model) proposal to enact the very plan they originally endorsed.”
There are a lot of key parallels in the Iowa redistricting model and a redistricting bill proposed here in Wisconsin. In fact, Wisconsin’s nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau termed them “virtually identical.”
And Democrats as early as 2003 called for transferring map-drawing authority to the bureau and away from lawmakers. The Republican proposal does that. But the GOP plan also abandons a key provision that Evers introduced in 2019, requiring approval of three-fourths of all members in the Assembly and Senate to pass the maps if a third round of voting becomes necessary.
Our definition of Mostly True is that the statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information.
That fits here.
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NEW YORK — The state Court of Appeals has ordered an independent redistricting commission to redraw New York’s congressional districts.
It’s a move that has national implications and could affect which party controls the House of Representatives.
New York has a law that says you can’t gerrymander, or make congressional maps essentially for political gain. The Constitution calls for a bipartisan commission to draw the maps, but then Democrats controlling the statehouse get final approval and only slight changes in current maps could likely end with lines favorable to Democrats.
The decision, which came down Tuesday afternoon, throws a monkey wrench into the 2024 congressional races in New York, where the six freshman Republicans who won last time could have to run in new district lines that are less favorable, and it could give Democrats a leg up in taking back control of the House, where only a handful of votes separate the two parties.
The New York Congressional Delegation currently has 15 Democrats and 11 Republicans. If all six freshmen lose and everything else stays the same next November, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries could become speaker.
Depending on how the independent redistricting commission redraws the maps, the most vulnerable New York congressmen could be Mike Lawler of Rockland County, Anthony D’Esposito of Long Island, and Marc Molinaro of Dutchess County.
Former congressman Tom Suozzi, a Democrat running to replace the expelled George Santos, could also see his district redrawn to add more likely Democrat voters.
Watch Marcia Kramer’s report
Needless to say, the Republicans are furious and the Democrats are thrilled.
“I think it’s corruption at its finest. We had a ruling last year that overturned the Democrats’ attempts to gerrymander New York’s maps and violate the Constitution. And because they didn’t like the outcome, they decided that they would do it once more,” Lawler said.
The high court ruled last year that Democrats had “unconstitutionally gerrymandered districts.” A neutral court-appointed special master drew new lines that helped Republicans flip four seats last November, but judges Tuesday said those maps were only supposed to be temporary and in a 4-3 vote, the Court of Appeals upheld a challenge and tossed out the current maps.
“This is what the court should have said last year. If they thought the process was incomplete, they should have just ordered the commission to finish the job, not take it completely away and draw the lines themselves through a special master from another state. That was just an absurd outcome to begin with. I’m glad now that things are being made right,” said state Sen. Michael Gianaris, a Democrat representing Queens.
Republicans hold a razor-thin three-seat majority in Congress, and this could potentially help flip anywhere from two to six seats.
“This is an enormous ruling not only because it can swing so many suburban New York area congressional districts, but the entire balance of power in Congress could hinge just on Upstate New York and Long Island — Hudson Valley, Syracuse area, Nassau and Suffolk County,” said CBS News congressional correspondent Scott MacFarlane.
New York GOP Chair Ed Cox and House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik from upstate New York have hinted at more court action, saying they “will not give up the fight against gerrymandering.”
The 4-3 ruling was written by the new Chief Justice Rowan Wilson.
The commission has until Feb. 28 to finish its work, then it goes to the Democratic-controlled legislature for approval. Lawler says there could be many lawsuits filed.
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee’s highest court on Friday temporarily blocked a lower court’s decision that lawmakers must redraw the state’s Senate maps in a ruling that means the current legislative districts will likely remain in place for the 2024 elections.
Late last month, a panel of judges ruled that the Republican-drawn map violated the state Constitution because lawmakers incorrectly numbered the seats in left-leaning Nashville. The numbers are important because they determine the years those seats are on the ballot.
The same trial judges ruled to temporarily block the Senate map in 2022, but the Supreme Court reinstated the districts then as well, reasoning that it was too close to the election.
In response to the November ruling, the state’s attorneys quickly moved to seek a pause of the decision, arguing that the plaintiffs had no standing to sue and that the state wanted to exhaust all of its appeals options before having to reconfigure district lines.
The Tennessee Supreme Court sided with the state in its Friday ruling. Doing so means the maps will remain in place as the appeals process plays out, which is typically a lengthy process and could easily bleed past the 2024 general elections.
Republicans celebrated the decision, including Senate Speaker Randy McNally, who has repeatedly defended the Senate map as legally sound.
“(McNally) is grateful the court recognized the clear and convincing need for a stay in this case,” said Adam Kleinheider, the speaker’s spokesperson. “He remains optimistic the state will ultimately prevail on appeal.”
The state has argued that because lawmakers reconvene on Jan. 9 and have a Jan. 31 deadline to draw a new Senate map, there’s not enough time to proceed under that timeline.
Attorneys for the plaintiff challenging the Senate map said lawmakers could begin work on a map immediately before they officially go into session. They wrote that the Supreme Court could decide the state’s appeal by the middle of January, offering a timeline to pass the maps similar to that in which lawmakers initially completed their redistricting work in late January 2022.
At issue are maps passed by the Republican-supermajority Legislature in 2022 during the once-a-decade redistricting process.
Tennessee’s constitution dictates that districts must be numbered consecutively in counties that have more than one district. The existing redistricting plan does not do that in Davidson County, which encompasses Nashville. Instead, its districts are numbered 17, 19, 20 and 21.
The numbering matters because the four-year Senate terms are staggered, putting some districts on the ballot in presidential election years, others in gubernatorial election cycles.
Currently, those four districts are represented by three Democrats and one Republican. There are 27 Republicans and 6 Democrats in the state Senate.
Court filings show that the state’s attorneys “conceded” they would not defend the Senate map in court and instead focused their attention arguing that the plaintiffs didn’t have standing to sue.
“The courts have ruled the Senate map an illegal gerrymander,” said Brandon Puttbrese, spokesperson for the Senate Democratic caucus. “Any new ruling that allows unconstitutional maps to remain in place for another election undermines our democracy and the will of voters.”
Tennessee’s state House map was also challenged in the lawsuit, though the state did defend those boundaries.
The lawsuit has been ongoing since 2022 after three voters backed by the Tennessee Democratic Party filed a complaint seeking to challenge the maps.
The state argued that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue over the maps, but the panel of judges allowed the case to proceed with one plaintiff eligible to challenge the House map and another allowed to contest the Senate map.
In April 2022, the panel of state trial-level judges blocked the Senate map from taking effect. The state appealed, and within a week, the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned that decision and let the maps stand.
A legal challenge against Tennessee’s redistricting maps is still pending in federal court, as well.
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Jonathan Mattise in Nashville contributed to this report.
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