Recent court decisions are threatening to upend the practice of parties drawing state legislative district maps in states.
On Friday, a federal court ordered the Wisconsin Legislature to redraw House legislative districts after finding in November that the districts were unconstitutionally partisan. The order will essentially require lawmakers to redraw state Senate districts, as well.
The November decision was the first time this decade that a court has thrown out legislative maps because they favored voters of one party over another. Subsequently, this will be the first time in a decade that lawmakers will have to redraw maps specifically to make them more fair for both parties.
Thirty-seven states allow their legislatures to draw their electoral maps. In Arkansas, the Legislature sets the borders for the state's four congressional districts; while the governor, secretary of state and attorney general draw the state legislative district maps.
After capturing 21 chambers in the 2010 elections, Republicans redrew nearly half of all congressional districts. In the years since, state legislative chambers flipped from 2-to-1 Democratic-controlled to 2-to-1 Republican-controlled, and Democrats have been locked out of the majority in key swing states. In many states, Democrats' only hope for redrawing maps after the 2020 Census is by winning competitive governors races.
Critics say Republicans around the country have used the redrawing of maps to gain an unfair advantage. Supporters say Republican policies are simply resonating with voters.
Wisconsin Democrats, who are in the minority in their Legislature, were hoping the court would redraw the maps, but said they are happy to have a second shot at the maps.
They are demanding public hearings on the map-drawing process.
"What we cannot and will not tolerate is another map drawn behind closed doors," Assembly Democratic Leader Peter Barca said in a statement.
Wisconsin is one of the most gerrymandered states in the nation. In November 2012, Democratic candidates for the Wisconsin Legislature received more votes than Republicans, but the Democratic Party won just 39 of 99 districts.
Republicans plan to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Doug Johnson, a redistricting expert at Claremont McKenna College, said justices have shied away from declaring partisanship because they haven't agreed on a way to specifically measure what constitutes disproportionately burdening the members of one party over another.
Both sides are accused of partisanship. In Maryland, a federal court is preparing to hear arguments that several congressional districts were drawn by Democrats to unfairly benefit their party.
"There's certainly a lot rolling toward the Supreme Court," he said. "We just have no idea whether the court will get on board or continue to avoid this question."
The news that Wisconsin lawmakers will have to redraw their state legislative maps comes a week after a federal court found that a dozen of Alabama's 105 state legislative districts were unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered. All 12 of the districts thrown out were represented by Democrats, and 10 of them were represented by black legislators. The Democratic judge on that panel wrote that he would have thrown out 24 districts.
That court also left it up to the state Legislature to redraw the districts, but because there are so many in question, the order will likely require lawmakers to redraw all state House and Senate districts.
A Section on 01/29/2017