Free Republic

Redrawing the congressional maps will likely produce a few headaches to start the session — but gridlock could produce an interesting political result, House Speaker Greg Stumbo said. Stumbo, a Democrat from Prestonsburg, said if the courts have to intervene over the new congressional maps, Kentucky could end up with all the congressional candidates running statewide and the top six vote-getters go to Congress. That happened in 1932 when lawmakers clashed over redrawing the lines. “What the court would do likely is require what they did once before is that there be an election this cycle and the top vote-getters...

A recent exposé that shows how Democratic Party operatives manipulated the California Citizens Redistricting Commission must have the politicians and their henchmen chortling in Sacramento and in Washington. The report by ProPublica, a non-profit New York-based news operation, proves conclusively that one of the two major parties used less-than-honest means to influence a public hearing process that determined how congressional district lines were drawn in California. What a shock! The key nugget on which the ProPublica story relies is a clutch of emails obtained from a congressional aide who convened a meeting in Washington last spring to discuss how to...

A state district judge has adopted a redistricting plan that will establish slightly different boundaries for New Mexico’s three congressional districts. Judge James Hall issued his ruling Thursday afternoon. Hall is adopting a plan that makes the fewest changes to the existing districts. It has the support of Gov. Susana Martinez, other Republicans and a group of Democrats that include Rep. Brian Egolf of Santa Fe.

Madison - An aide to a top lawmaker gave sworn testimony last week that new legislative maps approved this year were not meant to increase the Republican majority in the Legislature, but were nonetheless provided to the Republican National Committee in advance. The seemingly inconsistent testimony came in a deposition from Adam Foltz, an aide to Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald (R-Horizon) charged with drawing the new maps for lawmakers. A copy of the deposition was filed with a federal three-judge panel late Tuesday. Every 10 years, states must draw new boundaries for legislative and congressional districts to account for population...

ANNAPOLIS — Black voters and lawmakers said Thursday that a proposed state-level redistricting map provides too few majority-black districts and would lead to continued underrepresentation of minorities in the General Assembly. The testimony was given during a public hearing held by Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, and his appointed redistricting panel, which remapped Maryland’s 47 state Senate districts to account for population changes in the past decade. The panel submitted the map last week and touted the strides it would make toward improving minority representation by increasing the number of majority-black districts from 10 to 12 and increasing the number...

Many Democrats are giddy about a recent proposal by Florida’s Republican leadership to drastically change the boundaries defining Congressional District 22, now represented by the high profile Republican Congressman, Allen West. But the decision has left some in the Republican Party scratching their heads. Broward Republican Executive Committee Vice Chairwoman Colleen Stolberg has sharply criticized the Reapportionment Committee proposal to change District 22 boundaries in a way that would jeopardize West’s chances for re-election.

California's congressional Democrats ran a secret effort this year to manipulate the independent citizens panel that drew the state's new political districts, foiling the intent of those who sought to remove the redistricting process from the control of party bosses. Democrats met behind closed doors at the party's Washington headquarters, hired consultants, drew their ideal districts and presented maps to the panel through proxies who never disclosed their party ties or “public interest” groups created specifically for the purpose. In many cases, the panel responded by doing just what the Democrats wanted. The New York-based nonprofit investigative foundation ProPublica released...

California's congressional Democrats ran a secret effort earlier this year to manipulate the work of the independent citizen's panel that drew the state's new political districts, foiling the intent of reformers who sought to remove the redistricting process from the control of party bosses. Democrats met behind closed doors at the party's Washington, D.C. headquarters, hired consultants, drew their ideal districts and presented maps to the panel through proxies who never disclosed their party ties or "public interest" groups created specifically for the purpose. In many cases, the panel responded by doing just what the Democrats wanted. The New York-based...

California's congressional Democrats ran a secret effort this year to manipulate the work of the independent citizens panel that drew the state's new political districts, foiling the intent of reformers who sought to remove the redistricting process from the control of party bosses. Democrats met behind closed doors at the party's Washington, D.C., headquarters, hired consultants, drew their ideal districts and presented maps to the panel through proxies who never disclosed their party ties or "public interest" groups created specifically for the purpose. In many cases, the panel responded by doing just what the Democrats wanted. The New York-based nonprofit...

There have been a lot of good candidates for the "gerrymander of the decade" award this cycle. North Carolina, Illinois and Texas have all dreamed up district lines that have gone... --snip-- Republicans in Pennsylvania, however, took a state that is two or three points more Democratic than the country as a whole, and created 12 districts (out of 18) that are more Republican than the country as a whole. They did so by creating what can only be called a group of Rorschach-inkblot districts in southeastern Pennsylvania. The net result is a map that shores up their vulnerable incumbents,...

Dems Release Their Own Congressional Map Democrats have strongly criticized the congressional map unveiled yesterday by Harrisburg Republicans. Well-grounded accusations of partisanship fill the air. So Senate Democrats have released their own version. The caucus will introduce the map below as an amendment to SB 1249 at some point Wednesday. Since Republicans have the Governor’s mansion and majorities in the Pa. House and Senate, it’s unlikely to go anywhere. But it’s interesting to look at.The full map is below. Bless them for including municipal breakdowns. It raises an interesting question: can Dems still complain about gerrymandering when their maps looks...

Republicans notched a major redistricting win on Tuesday with the unveiling of a Pennsylvania congressional map that deals a sharp blow to Democrats’ prospects in the state. The GOP-drawn plan, released by a state legislative redistricting panel, forces two Democrats into an incumbent vs. incumbent face-off for a southwestern Pennsylvania-based seat and shores up more than a half-dozen House Republicans.

Reporting from Washington— The Supreme Court granted an emergency appeal Friday night from Texas Republicans, putting on hold a redistricting map drawn by judges that would give Democrats a good chance to pick up at least three seats in the next Congress. In an unusual move, the justices announced they would schedule special arguments on Jan. 9 to decide whether Texas and other Southern states may proceed to hold elections under new redistricting plans that have not been approved under the Voting Rights Act.

MADISON — Lori Compas said she is ahead of schedule in her campaign to recall Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald. As of Monday morning, Compas said she and her fellow petitioners had collected 5,350 of the 16,742 signatures that would, if validated, help trigger a recall election for the Juneau Republican. But if Republicans win in the state legal system, Compas’ efforts largely may be moot. A group of Wisconsinites has filed two lawsuits, one with the state Supreme Court and one this week in Waukesha County, that seek to use newly redrawn legislative district maps for any recall efforts...

A somewhat bitter U.S. Rep. Barney Frank said today he will not seek re-election in 2012 in a move he said was triggered by redistricting that left him with too many new constituents to serve as a “lame-duck” legislator. “There are too many constraints,” Frank said about his life as a politician and the energy it would take to meet new voters so late in his tenure. “People are skeptical about incumbents,” he added. “There was also this — I don’t like raising money.”

Republican activists trying to overturn some new voting districts cleared a significant hurdle toward putting the issue on the ballot by turning in petitions bearing hundreds of thousands of signatures. [...] Secretary of State Debra Bowen has said that vetting all the signatures could take until mid-March, after the Feb. 23 deadline for some candidates to file for the June primary. The timing could mean that the maps drawn by the California Citizens Redistricting Commission would be used until voters could weigh in on the November ballot. The referendum would allow voters the final word on the Senate maps. Dave...

In 2001, the Democratic Party in Georgia barely clung to power. The state, at that time, was moving ever closer toward a Republican majority. When the Democrats began the redistricting process, they knew the only way they could attempt to retain power was to gerrymander the districts in such a way that Republicans would have a difficult time getting elected to office. Well, it didn’t work. After weeks of work during a special session – a session where secret maps were drawn and unreleased until well into the process – the new districts looked outrageous. Lawsuits followed and the process...

Why your vote for Congress might not matterBy James Polk, CNN updated 10:19 AM EST, Fri November 18, 2011 **SNIP** Gerrymandering is the term for the way politicians draw boundary lines for legislative districts in a way designed to keep one party or the other in power in that particular district. In the last 10 years, 78% of the seats in the U.S. House of Representatives -- almost four out of every five members of Congress -- did not change party hands even once. In California, with 53 seats -- the most in the nation -- incumbents were kept so...

1. There is no confidence in our judiciary when a Supreme Court Justice does not bother to recuse herself when she had direct involvement in the issue before the court.

DENVER -- That 2012 statehouse battle between Reps. Andy Kerr and Ken Summers, their two House districts drawn together by Colorado's Reapportionment Commission, is on hold. For now. On Tuesday, the Colorado Supreme Court rejected the new map of Colorado's House and Senate districts approved by the commission in September. Several state lawmakers saw their seats become a lot more competitive under the new map, drawn by Entravision CEO Mario Carerra, the unaffiliated chairman of -- and swing vote on -- the 11-member commission. Now, after a 4-2 vote by the state's highest court, the Commission will have to reconvene...