Latest news with #NationalDemocraticRedistrictingCommittee
San Francisco Chronicle
2 days ago
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
As Newsom ponders redistricting, California projected to lose as many as 4 congressional seats
California could lose as many as four congressional seats in the 2030 apportionment, researchers say. A recent report from the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC) echoes earlier forecasts of the state's declining political clout, including from the non-partisan American Redistricting Project and from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. All three reports found the state could lose at least three seats; the Brennan Center projected four. California isn't alone. Other Democratic-leaning states like New York, Illinois and Minnesota are also expected to lose one or two seats due to population declines. Meanwhile, Republican-leaning Florida and Texas could each gain as many as four new seats. Since districts in many of these states tend to be heavily gerrymandered, and because the Electoral College is winner-take-all, these changes would help Republicans in both presidential and congressional races if current partisan preferences hold. The zero-sum math behind apportionment has always been the same: Each state receives seats in proportion to its population at each Census. For decades, that math worked in California's favor. Between 1950 and 1990, the state added an average of 6 new seats every apportionment cycle as its population ballooned. But lately, the state's growth has stalled out. Sky-high housing prices have driven hundreds of thousands out of the Golden State — often to the same red states that are gaining seats at California's expense. That process accelerated during the pandemic, as many Californians left the state and worked remotely from places with lower living costs, said Michael Li, senior counsel for the Brennan Center's Democracy Program. A large number of Baby Boomers also moved out of the state after retirement, he said. What's more, the immigrants who have lately powered the state's growth are staying away. Their numbers declined during the pandemic and under subsequent Trump-era restrictions. The projected decline of California's clout matters as Gov. Gavin Newsom is considering a countermove to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's redistricting plan favoring Republicans. Abbott called a special legislative session to redraw the state's congressional maps, a move that breaks from the custom of a once-a-decade redistricting cycle. Typically, new maps wouldn't be drawn again until after the 2030 census, unless ordered by a court. But Trump allies are pressuring Texas to make changes early to give Republicans an edge before the midterms. 'They are clearly very, very scared that they're going to lose the House of Representatives in this coming midterm cycle, and they're tipping their hand that they're going to need to cheat,' said John Bisognano, the president of NDRC, which fights for redistricting favorable to Democrats. For his part, Newsom could have a hard time using redistricting as a tool of partisan power. Even if the governor wanted to redraw congressional maps to favor Democrats, which state law already makes difficult, the math might only work out until the next Census. Data shows that not only is California's population stagnant, it's shrinking fastest in Democratic parts of the state. On average, between 2020 and 2023, Republican-leaning congressional districts in California grew, while Democratic ones shrank. California has limited tools to hold onto its political clout. For one thing, the state could invest more in boosting census participation, said Howard Fienberg, co-director at The Census Project. 'People may not be willing to report their information especially if they have illegal identity statuses or they are not proficient in English,' said Fienberg. 'It's also hard to count people accurately in rural or clustered urban areas.' Of course, California could also combat its declining influence by doing what it used to: attracting lots of new residents. Some signs are positive. As more companies require in-person work, people are moving back to the state and the trend could shift in the near future, said Li. 'We are still only halfway through the decade,' said Li. 'The future could look very different.'
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Greg Abbott accused of trying to ‘fix' midterms for Republicans by redrawing congressional maps
Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, has been accused by political opponents of trying to 'fix' next year's midterms in favor of Republicans after he announced a plan that would see a wide-scale redrawing of the state's congressional districts. The move was contained in Abbott's list of priorities for the upcoming legislative session published on Wednesday. It features several items related to the deadly Hill Country flooding that killed at least 120 people and left dozens more missing, including instructions for lawmakers to look at early warning systems and improving disaster preparation. But Abbott's directive to redraw congressional maps, which the Texas Tribune reported on Wednesday, was in response from a Trump administration demand for more Republican seats to preserve or expand the party's narrow House majority, and has angered Democrats. In a statement, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee called the move 'an attack on democracy'. Related: Redrawing Texas: the Republican plan to stack the decks for the midterms John Bisognano, the group's president, said: 'Despite the fact that Texas is in a state of emergency, instead of focusing on the wellbeing of his constituents, Governor Abbott's focus is how Republicans can enact a mid-decade gerrymander to secure unearned power ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. 'Texas's congressional map already silences the voices of thousands of Texans. That's why Texas voters have spent the last three years in court challenging it for violating the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 'Now, Texas Republicans want to enact an even more egregious gerrymander, because they are afraid of voters who are furious with their unpopular Maga [make America great again] agenda and horrific budget bill.' The Texas legislative session is scheduled to begin on 21 July, and Republicans hold a sizable majority in both houses that will probably allow Abbott's conservative agenda, which also includes an anti-trans bathroom bill and a clampdown on abortion pills, to progress smoothly. Texas has 38 seats in the House of Representatives, the second largest of all states behind California, which has 52. Currently 25 are held by Republicans, 12 by Democrats, with one vacancy, the 18th district that was represented by the Democrat Sylvester Turner until his death in March. Abbott drew criticism in April when he set a special election in the safe Democratic seat for 4 November, the latest possible date, helping to preserve the House Republican majority and leaving district voters unrepresented for seven months. Republicans passed Donald Trump's sweeping tax-and-spending bill in the House this month by a 218-214 vote, with three safe Democratic seats, in Texas, Arizona and Virginia, unoccupied after the deaths of the incumbents. Democratic leaders expect Texas lawmakers will attempt to repeat tactics used by Republicans in other states to create new Republican districts by moving blocks of their voters into Democratic areas. Redistricting moves in North Carolina ahead of the 2024 election changed a split 7-7 delegation into a 10-4 Republican advantage, helping secure a loyal majority for Trump. A six-day trial over the legality of the redistricting wrapped up in Winston-Salem this week with a verdict expected in August. Abbott has said there is a need to redraw his state's maps citing a letter from the justice department, authored by Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general in its civil rights division, and a former Trump campaign lawyer, arguing that four Texas districts had previously been 'racially gerrymandered' to benefit Democrats. Related: Republicans toe Trump line even in aftermath of deadly Texas floods Gina Hinojosa, a Democratic state representative, told the New York Times that Abbott's move was a 'blatant partisan power grab' while search and recovery operations were continuing following the weekend floods. 'I've been disappointed in this governor before but I've never been so thoroughly disgusted,' she said. 'The governor is so heartless as to do this right now?' Hakeem Jeffries, the New York congressman and Democratic House leader, echoed her views, and those of Bisognano, in a post to X. 'While Texans battle tragic and deadly flooding, Governor Abbott and House Republicans are plotting a mid-decade gerrymander. They should be modernizing emergency response — not rigging maps,' he wrote.
Yahoo
14-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Obama attorney general endorses candidate in Wisconsin Supreme Court race
Eric Holder, who served as attorney general of the United States under President Barack Obama, will be campaigning in support of Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford, according to the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which Holder chairs. Holder is among the first major national leaders to campaign in support of Crawford. "The fight for our democracy is unfolding at the ballot box in Wisconsin. This race is a choice between a court majority that is fair, balanced, and pro-democracy, and one that is anti-democracy, acting as another arm of an extreme right-wing agenda," Holder said in a statement to ABC News. "Judge Susan Crawford is the commonsense candidate Wisconsinites want and deserve on their state's highest court -- somone who will follow the facts and the law as she evaluates the cases before her," he added. While the race is technically nonpartisan, Crawford is running with the support of Democrats, while her opponent, Brad Schimel, has the support of Republicans. Redistricting, or the redrawing of congressional and legislative district maps based on population data, is one of the issues that has come up in the closely watched race because the court has previously dealt with redistricting cases. In 2024, the court ruled in favor of keeping Wisconsin's current congressional district map in place after previously rejecting legislative district maps. Holder will be campaigning in support of Crawford on Monday in Madison, Wisconsin, and on Tuesday in Milwaukee. The Wisconsin Supreme Court election is on April 1, and the contest for the seat of retiring Justice Ann Walsh Bradley is technically a nonpartisan race, though whoever wins the seat will help determine the ideological bent of the court -- which currently leans liberal. Obama attorney general endorses candidate in Wisconsin Supreme Court race originally appeared on
Boston Globe
13-03-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Louisiana vs. the ‘non-African Americans'
But as Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, pointed out, it's the old legal racial switcheroo. And history is rhyming. 'The argument put forth by the plaintiffs seeking the requirement of race blindness, even in the course of remedying racial vote dilution, is not new,' Jenkins said Wednesday, previewing the March 24 argument to members of the press. 'It dates back to the civil rights movement, when opponents of voting rights protections for minority groups used the same argument to oppose addressing racial discrimination. The irony and hypocrisy is hard to miss.' The National Democratic Redistricting Committee was among the groups that Advertisement Meanwhile, the Supreme Court issued a ruling rejecting a similarly racially rigged map in Alabama. So rather than fight, Louisiana lawmakers decided to go back to the map-drawing board and try to comply with the justices' ruling. Lawmakers drafted and the governor approved a new map that included But then the state was sued by the 'non-African American' group, which said that the new map was forbidden because state officials drafted it primarily on the basis of race. Yes: They argued that the state violated the law by complying with a ruling that said you can't racially discriminate against Black people. Advertisement Now Louisiana officials are crying uncle, saying they will be damned with Black voter dilution lawsuits if they throw out the new map and damned with racial discrimination lawsuits from non-Afrian American voters if they don't. They asked the Supreme Court to sort it all out instead. Here's the bad news for democracy lovers: The Supreme Court has, for more than a decade, become increasingly critical of the racial components of the Voting Rights Act itself. In 2013, So the non-African Americans must be feeling pretty bullish. They'll make their case to the justices later this month. I'll let you know how it goes.
Boston Globe
26-01-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
How redistricting helped Republicans win the House
Consequences from the death of competition are readily apparent. Roughly 90 percent of races are now decided not by general-election voters in November but by the partisans who tend to vote in primaries months earlier. That favors candidates who appeal to ideological voters and lawmakers who are less likely to compromise. It exacerbates the polarization that has led to deadlock in Congress and in statehouses. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'Because of partisan and racial gerrymandering, you end up with these skewed results and legislative bodies that don't necessarily reflect the political makeup of either the states or, writ large, the House of Representatives representing the political desires of the American people,' said Eric Holder, the attorney general in the Obama administration who, as chair of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, has criticized the mapmaking process and at times even called out his own party's redistricting practices. Advertisement In 2020, the last time that once-a-decade national exercise took place, both parties largely followed a similar strategy. Their maps typically made districts safer by stocking them with voters from one party, rather than breaking them up in an effort to pick up seats. Republicans, as the party in control of the process in more states, drew more of these slanted districts than Democrats. Other factors have contributed to vanishing competition, including demographic shifts and 'political sorting' — the tendency of like-minded citizens to live in the same community. But the role of redistricting is evident when zooming in on a single state. Take, for example, Texas, where in 2020, before redistricting, 10 of 38 congressional races were decided by 10 percentage points or fewer. In 2024, just two races were. In five races last year, Democrats did not even run a candidate, ceding the seat to Republicans. One Democrat ran unopposed. Advertisement In state legislatures, where lawmakers are drawing maps for their own districts, safe seats abound. There are 181 state legislative seats in Texas, with 31 senators and 150 representatives. In 2024, just four of those elections — three in the Statehouse and one in the state Senate — were decided by 5 points or fewer, according to the Times' analysis. While it is easy to focus on the candidates, the money, the message, or the economy, increasingly it is the maps that determine the outcome. In North Carolina, they may have decided control of the US House of Representatives. Only one of the state's 14 congressional districts was decided by fewer than 5 points. A Republican won the state's next closest race — by 14 points. In 2022, the state Supreme Court ordered a more competitive map, but it was tossed out after midterm elections shook up the balance of the court. The replacement, which was drawn by the Republican-led legislature, gave three Democratic seats to the GOP while making nearly every district safer for the party that held it. It is impossible to know how elections held under the first map would have turned out. But, according to Justin Levitt, a redistricting law expert at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, 'had every seat stayed the same as in 2022, those three seats would have made the difference, and Democrats would have had a one-seat majority' in Congress. Advertisement North Carolina is hardly an outlier. In Illinois, a state dominated by Democrats, no congressional election was within a 5-point margin, and just two were within 10 points. In Maryland, just one district was within a 5-point margin. Georgia did not have a single congressional district within a 10-point margin, out of 14 seats. The state's closest race was the 13-point victory by Representative Sanford Bishop, a Democrat, in the 2nd Congressional District. At the state legislative level, the numbers were even starker. In Georgia, just five of the 236 state legislative seats, or 2 percent, were decided by 5 points or fewer, and more than half of the races were uncontested. In Florida, 10 of the 160 state legislative races were within a 5-point margin. With so few general elections to worry about, tribalism can take over in legislatures, leaving many elected officials to worry only about primary challenges, often from their party's fringes. In the modern climate of political polarization, the lack of competitive districts not only removes an incentive to work with the other party but actively deters doing so. This article originally appeared in
