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Former president working with Eric Holder to focus on redistricting efforts A group backed by former President Barack Obama participated at a D.C. gathering of deep-pocketed progressive donors strategizing to "restore progressive government" and to ensure fair redistricting in upcoming years. The gathering, hosted by the dark money Democracy Alliance network, is part of the network's spring investment conference and national donor summit held in D.C to plot resistance against President Trump and Republicans. The summit consists of numerous panels and discussions with key Democratic groups and players. Kelly Ward, the executive director of the Obama-linked National Democratic Redistricting Committee...

A panel of federal judges has ordered the Wisconsin Legislature to redraw legislative boundaries by November, rejecting calls from those challenging the maps to have the judges do the work. The three-judge panel released its decision in the redistricting case Friday. The state is expected to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case. State attorneys had asked for the Republican-controlled Legislature to be allowed to draw the maps if the Supreme Court orders them redone. Democrats who sued over the boundaries wanted the judges to do that. …

After two election cycles as the executive director of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, Kelly Ward has a new challenge: helping to lead a coordinated Democratic redistricting effort ahead of new map drawings following the 2020 census. Ward will be the interim executive director of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a group led by President Barack Obama and former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. A native of Las Vegas, Ward largely earned her chops in Arizona politics before emerging as a top campaign aide on the national stage, becoming the first person to spend two consecutive elections as the...

The highest court in Massachusetts is set to hear arguments in a long-running legal battle over whether former House speaker Thomas Finneran should be able to collect his $34,000 annual pension despite his conviction on an obstruction of justice charge. Finneran’s fall from grace began in 2003 when he lied about his role in a legislative redistricting plan. …

A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Monday that illegal immigrants and other non-citizens can be counted when states draw their legislative districts, shooting down a challenge by Texas residents who said their own voting power was being diluted. The ruling does not grant non-citizens power to vote, but says the principle of “one person, one vote” doesn’t require localities to only count those who are actually eligible to vote. Justice Ruth Baden Ginsburg, writing for the court, said even though only eligible voters are supposed to cast ballots, elected officials represent all people within their districts, and it is that act...

Earlier today, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Virginia redistricting case on appeal from a lower court decision to completely redraw the map in the middle of an election. Once again, the most important political questions of our time are all decided by the unelected branch of government – the one that was to have “neither force nor will.” The practice of gerrymandering, drawing congressional district boundaries to benefit those in power, is as old as it is unfair. After all, this odious practice was named after one of its earliest practitioners, Elbridge Gerry, one of the top...

WASHINGTON -- A separate redistricting case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday has a Hispanic congressmen worried it could lead to giving the majority Anglo population a new tool to maintain political control despite changing demographics. The case challenges the practice in Texas to use census population to divide up the state into different legislative districts. That system, the same as used in Arizona, is based on a head count done every decade by the U.S. Census. But challengers contend that's not fair, as population does not equate with ability to vote. So they are asking the justices to...

Doesn't anyone else think it's time the public found out who funded the coalition of groups suing the Legislature over its redistricting maps? Who paid plaintiff attorney David King?God knows, it wasn't the League of Women Voters of Florida. So, how does a group with such a tiny budget wrangle a team of high-priced, Gucci-shoed lawyers, arguing every one of the redistricting lawsuits in court?

HILLARY CLINTON played the race card in Alabama last week, telling Democrats that plans to close 31 underused satellite offices of the state's Department of Motor Vehicles are evidence of Republican racism. The closings were compelled by spending cuts enacted by a GOP-majority legislature facing a budget crisis, but Clinton slammed it as "a blast from the Jim Crow past," since most of the branch offices are in predominantly black rural towns and Alabamans have to show photo identification when they vote. "Fifty years after Rosa Parks sat and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marched and John Lewis bled," Clinton...

The Florida House and Senate meet today to discuss redistricting. Maps of proposed districts and other documents available: http://www.flsenate.gov/session/redistricting

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The political careers of several members of Congress — including a Republican seeking to become the next U.S. House speaker — could come to an abrupt halt under a sweeping overhaul of Florida's electoral map. Florida Circuit Judge Terry Lewis on Friday recommended new boundaries for the state's 27 congressional districts, some of which would make it nearly impossible for U.S. Rep. Dan Webster — one of the hard-line conservatives who pushed John Boehner to resign as speaker and then turned on Boehner's No. 2, Kevin McCarthy — to win re-election from his current central Florida...

A plan to redraw Florida's 27 congressional districts overwhelmingly passed the state House on Tuesday, inching closer to a potential faceoff with the Senate. The map approved would require major changes to several districts, including U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown's 5th Congressional District. Brown has filed a federal lawsuit to overturn the state court's decision to redraw the districts. Brown said it's not about her, but about black voters being able to elect someone to represent them.

The Democratic Governors Association is looking to give its members a greater say in drawing congressional boundaries during the 2020 redistricting process. The group announced Tuesday that Virginia Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe and EMILY’s List President Stephanie Schriock would lead fundraising and other efforts in a new initiative aimed at helping Democrats in 18 targeted states. McAuliffe, a major fundraiser who is close friends with Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton, said the initiative “is about ensuring more Democratic governors can be at the table in 2020 to prevent the kind of far-right gerrymandering we saw in 2010.” …

A group of Democrats sued state election officials Wednesday over election maps Republicans drew in 2011 that helped give them a firm grip on the Legislature. The lawsuit comes two years after a panel of three federal judges in separate litigation redrew two Assembly districts and blasted GOP lawmakers for drawing the maps in secret. That panel found the two districts on Milwaukee's south side violated the voting rights of Latinos, but it upheld all the other legislative maps, allowing Republicans to keep their advantage in elections. The new lawsuit seeks to change that by arguing the maps are so...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that Arizona’s voters were entitled to try to make the process of drawing congressional district lines less partisan. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion in the 5-to-4 decision. She was joined by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. The case, Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, No. 13-1314, concerned an independent commission created by Arizona voters in 2000. About a dozen states have experimented with redistricting commissions that have varying degrees of independence from the state legislatures, which ordinarily draw election maps. Arizona’s commission is most...

The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear an important case about whether states must count only those who are eligible to vote, rather than the total population, when drawing electoral districts for their legislatures. The case from Texas could be significant for states with large immigrant populations, including Latinos who are children or not citizens. The plaintiffs claim that redrawing electoral districts based on the population of citizens and non-citizens alike violates the constitutional requirement of one person, one vote. The challengers claim that taking account of total population can lead to vast differences in the number of voters in...

As the co-founder of the Daily Show, Lizz Winstead might be a funny lady. But what she came up with today was surely an unintentional laugh line. Appearing on Joy Reid's MSNBC show this afternoon, Winstead blamed Wendy Davis' impending thrashing in her race for Governor of Texas on . . . "redistricting." Lizz, last time we looked, there is no districting—"re" or otherwise—when it comes to statewide races. The entire state is one big district that gets to vote for Governor. Oh, and for good measure, Lizz laid the rest of the blame on "the media." Right. In a...

Virginia legislators packed too many black voters into one congressional district in order to make adjacent districts safer for Republican incumbents, a federal court ruled Tuesday. The 2-1 ruling by a panel of judges left the state’s congressional districts intact for November’s elections but ordered the General Assembly to draw new boundaries by April 1 next year correcting the flawed 2012 redistricting plan. […] With Democratic-backing, two voters from the 3rd District filed a lawsuit challenging the district map. The plaintiffs claimed that the lawmakers who drew it could have shifted a large number of black voters from (Bobby) Scott’s...

A Texas court ruled Thursday to overturn the conviction of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), who was found guilty of money laundering in 2010. According to KHOU 11 and the Associated Press, the Third Court of Appeals in Austin said the case's evidence was "legally insufficient to sustain DeLay's convictions," formally acquitting the former congressman on charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider a challenge from Alabama Democrats who say a Republican-drawn legislative map intentionally packs black Democrats into a few voting districts, giving them too little influence in the Legislature. The justices agreed to hear a pair of appeals from the Alabama Legislative Black Caucus and other Democratic lawmakers who contend the new map created in 2012 illegally limits black voting strength and makes it harder to elect Democrats outside the majority-black districts. A panel of three federal judges had ruled 2-1 last year that the new districts were not discriminatory and did not...