Leading Off
● Pennsylvania: After months of stonewalling a redistricting reform proposal, a committee in Pennsylvania's Republican-dominated state Senate has unanimously sent a compromise bill to the floor that would create a new bipartisan commission to handle both congressional and legislative redistricting. This proposal would create an 11-member commission whose members would be appointed by the governor and legislative leaders from both parties and who would each have to be approved by a two-thirds vote of the legislature.
Campaign Action
The commission would consist of four Democrats, four Republicans, and three unaffiliated members, and it would take at least two votes from each bloc and seven votes overall to pass a map. The proposal would also impose criteria that set a hard limit on dividing counties and municipalities, prioritize compactness, and ban the consideration of any political data unless necessary to comply with federal voting rights law.
To put this amendment before voters for their ultimate approval, legislators would first have to pass it with simple majorities both this year and in the 2019-2020 legislative session. Therefore, the soonest it might be on the ballot would be some time after the 2018 elections.
Pennsylvania doesn't allow citizens to propose constitutional amendments of their own, so because such an amendment has to come out of the legislature, it’s unsurprising that lawmakers have insisted on retaining a say in the system they’ve proposed to replace the current one. But while this plan is better than the current approach of letting the legislators draw the next congressional map on their own, it might not be an improvement over the likely outcome of next decade's remap.
That's because Pennsylvania's majority-Democratic state Supreme Court used the state constitution's guarantee of "free and equal" elections to strike down the GOP's congressional gerrymander earlier this year. But they replaced it with a map that didn't just ignore partisan data: The justices actively tried to ensure the party that wins the most votes also wins the most seats—in other words, they tried to implement a map that's actually fair.
By contrast, in banning the use of partisan data, this new proposal could leave Pennsylvania with maps that penalize could Democratic voters based on where they live, letting Republicans frequently win majorities even when they win fewer votes statewide. And by leaving politicians from both parties in firm control of the mapmaking process, there would be little to stop them from passing maps that protect incumbents from both parties, depriving voters of the chance to vote in competitive elections.
If, however, the measure doesn’t become law and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf wins re-election this November as he is favored to do, he could veto another Republican congressional gerrymander in 2021. If that were to happen, the state Supreme Court could draw another fair map. In addition, the state Supreme Court already gets to appoint the tiebreaker on the existing legislative redistricting commission, so the justices currently hold sway over those maps for next decade, too.
Pennsylvania is in need of a long-term fix to fighting gerrymandering that doesn't just rely on Democrats maintaining the governor's veto pen or their majority on the state Supreme Court. But a requirement to ignore partisanship entirely is not a solution that will produce fairer maps, compared to what we can reasonably expect from Pennsylvania's current institutions.
Pennsylvanians might be better off just waiting until next decade's redistricting replaces the GOP’s existing legislative gerrymanders with fairer maps. That could lead to a new legislature that’s more interested in passing real redistricting reform that insists on partisan fairness.
Redistricting
● Demographics: Daily Kos Elections is pleased to present racial demographic statistics for every congressional district in the 115th Congress broken down by age and citizenship status, which is informative for the purposes of redistricting and the Voting Rights Act. We’ve calculated these figures by using estimates from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, which is a large statistical sample of Americans conducted each year.
We have compiled the estimated proportion of each district's residents who are white, black, Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, or Native American. You can view these categories broken down four ways, using estimates of four different population types for each district: the total population of all residents; the voting-age (i.e., adult) population; the total citizen population; and finally the citizen voting age population. The predominant racial group for each population type is shaded, with majorities darker and pluralities lighter.
Most importantly, these statistics can give you a good idea of just how different the demographics are between the population at large and the pool of eligible voters for every district. Nationwide, citizens of voting age are 70 percent white and just 11 percent Latino, while the country’s total population is only 62 percent white and 17 percent Latino.
And in a district like California’s 21st, which is based in the state’s agriculture-heavy Central Valley and thus is home to a large migrant population, the difference is even starker: Among all residents, the seat is 74 percent Latino and only 17 percent white, but the citizen voting age population is 59 percent Latino and 29 percent white. That disparity partly explains why a Republican, Rep. David Valadao, has represented the area since 2013.
These stats are also useful in the context of states like Texas that are currently embroiled in lawsuits over redistricting maps that allegedly discriminate against black and Latino voters. As you can see, districts like Virginia’s 3rd can routinely elect black candidates even if their adult population isn’t quite majority black, but districts like California’s 21st often need to be far more than majority-Latino to elect a Latino representative, thanks to lower citizenship and turnout rates.
For districts with large populations of immigrants and children, these numbers can also give you an idea of where a district's demographics are headed over the years as these groups naturalize and reach voting age, respectively.
Note that, while the citizen voting age population is the closest estimate we have of the eligible-voter population, the two statistics aren’t necessarily identical. The reason is because most states disenfranchise those serving time for felony convictions, and a few even ban such people from voting for life, even after they’ve completed their sentences. Therefore, some citizens who are of voting age are nonetheless ineligible to vote due to their felony status.
However, the Census Bureau doesn’t calculate data on felony disenfranchisement broken down by race and citizenship status for each district. As a result, the proportion of eligible voters for each racial group may differ somewhat from the corresponding proportion of citizen vote-age population for each group, likely in a way that would tend to increase the white share of the electorate. That’s because felony disenfranchisement laws were designed during Jim Crow to disenfranchise African Americans, and to this day, they have a disproportionate impact on people of color.
You can also find these same stats, along with election results, member biographical information, and much more in our complete guide to the 115th Congress.
● Ohio: The ACLU has filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the nonpartisan League of Women Voters and a group of Democratic voters who claim that Ohio's Republican-drawn congressional map is a partisan gerrymander in violation of the U.S. Constitution. The map is indeed one of the most extreme gerrymanders in the country, with Republicans packing Democrats into just four of the state’s 16 districts, even though Ohio has long been a swing state. This map has given the GOP three-quarters of the state’s seats in Congress in every election this decade, even when Barack Obama carried Ohio in 2012.
This case is the latest to arise under the shadow of the Supreme Court’s debate over whether to place limits on partisan gerrymandering in two cases concerning Maryland and Wisconsin, where decisions are expected in June. Should the high court set a new standard against gerrymandering, this Ohio case would have a chance to force a new congressional map for the 2020 elections, but most observers are pessimistic that the justices will rule in favor of reformers.
Campaign Finance
● Maine: In dismaying news for proponents of Maine's public campaign funding system, a drafting error in the state budget is set to prevent participating candidates from receiving supplemental funds after July 1. Maine’s public financing regime is unusually robust in that not only can candidates qualify for a sizable round of initial funding for both the primary and general election by raising a certain number of small-dollar donations, they can also gain access to several supplemental rounds of funding for each additional batch of small donations they bring in.
Under this system, grassroots candidates can attain some serious financial firepower simply through public financing, but this budgetary error will prevent these hopefuls from unlocking any of those supplemental funds, leaving them only with the funding they received during the primary and one additional round for making it all the way to the November general election. Lawmakers have shown little interest in calling a special session to fix the mistake.
This mess could subsequently hurt the chances of three gubernatorial candidates who are relying on public funds: Democratic activist Betsy Sweet, Republican state Senate Majority Leader Garrett Mason, and independent state Treasurer Terry Hayes. Public funding has also played a key role in leveling the playing field in legislative races, so many more down-ballot campaigns will also be affected by this problem.
Secretary of State Elections
● North Dakota: Republicans have found themselves with no other option than to back an independent candidate in the race for secretary of state after Republican Will Gardner dropped out over a sexual harassment scandal, leaving his party with no one else on the June primary ballot. (The filing deadline passed in early April.) Gardner has said he'll decline the nomination so that no Republican will appear on the ballot this fall, meaning the GOP will have the chance to unite behind an independent candidate to hold onto the office without fear of Gardner playing spoiler.
However, state Republicans didn't commit to backing long-time GOP incumbent Al Jaeger, who revived his campaign as an independent after Gardner's scandal blew up. Jaeger had dropped out in April after Gardner defeated him at the state GOP convention last month in part because of Gardner's stronger support for voter suppression measures like strict voter ID laws. There may still be some lingering bad blood between Republican insiders and Jaeger, although no other notable contenders are talking up an indie bid yet.
But if the state GOP does back another horse, a divided Republican field could help state Rep. Josh Boschee, the presumptive Democratic nominee, win in this dark-red state. Boschee is running on a platform of modernizing the office after 25 years under Jaeger.
Voter Suppression
● Florida: Democrats and the nonpartisan League of Women Voters have filed a federal lawsuit against Republican Gov. Rick Scott over his administration’s ban on early voting locations on college campuses. Secretary of State Ken Detzner, a Scott appointee, had issued an opinion in 2014 that barred the University of Florida from putting a polling place in its student union, and Republicans have since used this opinion as a weapon to suppress the votes of Democratic-leaning students with limited access to transportation at other colleges around the state.
● New Hampshire: New Hampshire Republicans have passed a bill to prohibit the release of the state's voter file to plaintiffs in a pending lawsuit over a law the GOP passed last year that imposed burdensome residency requirements on Democratic-leaning voters. Republican Gov. Chris Sununu's office said he intends to sign this measure, which is an attempt to override a state court ruling that ordered the state to hand over the file last month.
Plaintiffs are seeking this data because it includes more robust data about the state’s voters, including personal information that is normally unavailable to those who obtain the voter file for more typical campaign purposes. In a naked display of cynicism, Republicans claim they’re merely trying to protect the privacy of voters who were worried their information would be sent to Donald Trump's bogus voter fraud commission, but considering that Trump disbanded the panel in January, this excuse could not appear any phonier.
Following a request from the state attorney general (a Sununu appointee), the state Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments on whether the lower court acted properly when it ordered that the voter file be made available to the plaintiffs. Democratic appointees hold a three-to-two majority on the court, but that alone is no guarantee of success in stopping this latest Republican scheme to hide evidence of voter suppression.
● Texas: A federal district court has ordered Texas to allow online voter registration for those who update their driver's licenses via the internet, which is the result of a lawsuit that argued Texas election officials were violating the National Voter Registration Act by failing to update registrations when voters conducted license transactions digitally. Republicans have said they will appeal the ruling, but if it stands, it would finally bring a limited form of online registration to a state that's among the roughly dozen to still lack that option for voters.
