What in the Redistricting is Going On?

Ahead of its Friday, July 21 deadline, Alabama lawmakers worked to redraw — and enact — a new congressional map after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Allen v. Milligan that a second majority-Black district must be included. 

However, neither of the two maps proposed at the beginning of the week included a second majority-Black district. With a stroke of forethought, the Allen decision did also stipulate that a federal district court will review the map to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act (VRA). Today is the deadline for a new map to be enacted. If a new map is not enacted, the court will take over the map-drawing process with a special master.

How are other states doing in the apparent eternal struggle to allow citizens a fair opportunity to elect their preferred representatives?

• Three lawsuits challenging Georgia's congressional and legislative maps will head to trial on Sept. 5. In all of the cases, voters argue that the Republican-drawn districts dilute the power of Black voters and violate Section 2 of the VRA.

• In lawsuits over Louisiana's congressional map, a federal court set the hearing for Oct. 3-5. The scheduling order allows Louisiana to redraw its congressional map to contain a second majority-Black district as the state was previously ordered to do.

• In New York last week, an appellate state court ordered the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) to redraw its congressional map. The court concluded that democracy relies on the IRC completing its mandatory duty. Read the breakdown of the timeline here.

Last Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it will hear oral argument in a racial gerrymandering case out of South Carolina on Oct. 11. A lower federal court previously struck down the state's congressional map for intentionally discriminating against Black voters. Republican legislators appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.

• In its opinion, the three-judge panel found that creating South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District would have been “effectively impossible without the gerrymandering of the African American population of Charleston County” and that the “movement of over 30,000 African Americans in a single county from Congressional District No. 1 to Congressional District No. 6 created a stark racial gerrymander of Charleston County.”

Finally, not one to be outdone by any other state, or forgotten, Ohio could have another chance to gerrymander after the U.S. Supreme Court sent the case back down to the state Supreme Court to decide the fate of the congressional map. 

• Reminder: The state Supreme Court has struck down Ohio’s Republican-drawn congressional and legislative maps a total of seven times. Democracy Docket contributor Katy Shanahan writes this week on the confusing decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the independent state legislature theory in North Carolina, but to nevertheless give Ohio an opportunity to enact an egregiously gerrymandered congressional map. 

In Wisconsin, Is Absentee Voting a Right or a Privilege? 

Yesterday, a lawsuit was filed by Priorities USA, the Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans and a voter against the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) challenging three rules regulating the state’s absentee voting procedure: 

• The requirement for a voter to fix certification envelope errors in the presence of their original witness, 

• The absentee ballot return deadline, which is 8 p.m. on Election Day and 

• The prohibition on drop boxes. 

The complaint asserts that three separate absentee voting rules violate the Wisconsin Constitution by treating absentee voting as a “privilege” and not a “right.”

Currently, only 24 states require officials to notify voters that their ballots are at risk of rejection. One of the provisions of congressional Democrats’ newly reintroduced Freedom to Vote Act would require every state to “make a good faith effort to notify the individual by mail, telephone, and (if available) text message and electronic mail” that their absentee ballot is at risk of rejection if further steps are not taken.

The Freedom to Vote Act Fights for Voters. The ACE Act? Not So Much.

On Tuesday, July 18, Democratic members of Congress reintroduced the Freedom to Vote Act, a comprehensive voting rights bill that would establish national voting standards, end partisan gerrymandering, tackle felony disenfranchisement, require the disclosure of top donors and create protections for nonpartisan election officials. 

Some of the bill’s highlights include:

• Making any federal Election Day a public holiday,

• Enacting automatic voter registration for each state, 

• Requiring drop boxes for ballots voted in federal elections and

• Mandating same-day voter registration and early voting periods in each state. 

The timing of the bill’s reintroduction is in response to House Republicans’ American Confidence in Elections (ACE) Act, an omnibus voter suppression bill introduced last week. The ACE Act would enact sweeping changes to Washington, D.C.’s elections and provide a template for states to follow as Republican legislatures across the country work to restrict access to the ballot under the guise of “election integrity.”

The overhauling of D.C.’s elections would:

• Require a photo ID to vote, both in-person and by mail,

• Ban same-day voter registration and

• Prohibit community ballot collection and restrict drop boxes.

Democrats have been seeking to establish federal protections for elections since the violent events on Jan. 6. As Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), one of the bill’s sponsors, put it at the press conference, Jan. 6, 2021 “was an effort to disenfranchise 80 million people…The only response to an instance of massive disenfranchisement of that kind is to guarantee that people’s franchises are respected, and that's what this bill does.” 

The ACE Act is almost certain to die in the Democratic-majority Senate and the Freedom to Vote Act faces the same fate in the Republican-majority House. However, both provide critical insight for voters heading into 2024 — which future for our elections do you prefer?

Subversive Actions in 2020 Are Finally Seeing Consequences   

The legal architects of Jan. 6 are finally beginning to see some consequences. Last week, Washington, D.C.-based bar disciplinary committee recommended that Rudy Giuliani face disbarment proceedings. This month, two other members of Trump’s legal team were faced with consequences for disrupting the peaceful transfer of power — John Eastman’s disbarment proceedings in California began and Lin Wood retired early in Georgia rather than face disbarment proceedings.

Earlier this week, former President Donald Trump received a target letter from special counsel Jack Smith, who has been investigating the events leading up to Jan. 6. As Trump wrote on Truth Social, a target letter “almost always means an arrest and indictment.” This would be the third time Trump is indicted.

The public likely won’t know the charges until Trump’s arrest and arraignment, however, Smith’s team had been circling potential obstruction charges related Trump’s actions prior to, and on, Jan. 6. 

However, we do know that the Georgia Supreme Court unanimously rejected former President Donald Trump's effort to block the release of the Fulton County grand jury report, which would recommend indictments pertaining to Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

There have been new consequences at the state level, too. In Michigan, Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) announced charges against 16 Michigan residents for their role in a false electors plot to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. 

• These individuals signed certificates erroneously claiming that former President Donald Trump had won the state of Michigan. In the certificates, the defendants described themselves as being “the duly elected and qualified electors.” Some electors had additionally attempted to deliver the documents to the Michigan Senate, where they were stopped by police.

Recuse Who? If the U.S. Supreme Court Won’t Self-Impose a Code of Ethics, Democrats Will 

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the comprehensive Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency (SCERT) Act, a bill that would create a standard of transparency and a baseline of ethics for the U.S. Supreme Court to follow. 

More specifically, the legislation would create a process for investigating misconduct, bolster recusal standards and disclosure of special interests rules and begin the process of creating a binding code of ethics. 

As one of the bill’s sponsors, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), said at the February reintroduction of the bill: “​​The word unprecedented is starting to lose its meaning as we see more and more questionable behavior from justices. And public trust and confidence in the Supreme Court is at an all-time low.”

Abe Hamadeh Loses In (And Out) of Arizona Court

An Arizona judge rejected Republican attorney general candidate Abe Hamadeh's request for a second trial in his lawsuit contesting his 2022 loss against now-Attorney General Kris Mayes (D). 

In December 2022, the same judge tossed out Hamadeh’s election contest, which was also backed by two Arizona voters and the Republican National Committee, after holding a trial on the Republicans’ claims of erroneously counted ballots and election board misconduct, wrongful exclusion of provisional ballots, inaccurate ballot duplications and improper electronic ballot adjudication. 

Hamadeh has vowed to appeal the decision to the Arizona Supreme Court in a statement that  continued to cast doubt on the results of the election.

More News

• A lawsuit was filed by the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition and four individuals with former felony convictions challenging Florida’s onerous and inconsistent system for voting rights restoration as well as the state’s “election police” unit. The plaintiffs allege that the current system violates Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act as well as the First and 14th Amendments.

• Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R-Ohio) announced his run for U.S. Senate. LaRose has grown increasingly extreme in his anti-democracy rhetoric and actions and has a pattern of flip-flopping on issues of grave concern to voters.

• Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson (R) sent a letter removing the Lone Star State from ERIC, a voter data organization states use to maintain voter rolls. Multiple Republican-led states have left the group this year due to misinformation and election conspiracies.

OPINION: Despite Our Efforts, a Relic of White Supremacy Remains in Mississippi Today

By Rob McDuff, a civil rights and criminal defense lawyer in Jackson, Mississippi and the director of the Impact Litigation Initiative of the Mississippi Center for Justice. Read more ➡️

We are reading the new report from the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections to learn what policies are needed to better protect election workers and their families ahead of 2024.

In light of the Senate Judiciary Committee advancing meaningful Supreme Court reform to the Senate floor, we are also reading thorough research from ProPublica and the Washington Posts  on the Court’s latest ethics scandals:  

• Justice Clarence Thomas and a Leonard Leo-funded public relations campaign 

• Justice Samuel Alito and fishing trips with GOP megadonor Paul Singer and Singer’s repeated business before the Court

• Justice Clarence Thomas, Harlan Crow, lavish trips, tuition payments and more

• Ginni Thomas, her role in Jan. 6 and Justice Thomas’ duty to recuse 

There’s a new episode of our podcast, Defending Democracy, this week! In today’s new episode, Marc and Paige discuss recent decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court and the public's falling confidence in the nation's highest court. Listen on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.