For the sixth time, the Ohio Redistricting Commission is back drawing legislative maps

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09/22/2023

Redistricting efforts continue across the country with updates in Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, New York and Ohio.

In better news, New York enacted a package of voting rights legislation on Wednesday. A judge ruled, partially, against vote suppressors in Arizona and a voting rights lawyer was sworn in to the North Carolina Supreme Court.

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Redistricting May Be Democracy’s Sisyphean Task
** ([link removed])

There is a lot of ground — and maps — to cover this week in the wild world of redistricting.

First off, New York’s highest court ** paused ([link removed])
a court order requiring New York's independent redistricting commission to reconvene and draw new congressional districts. The court will hold oral argument on Nov. 15 to determine if the commission must draw a new map. ** Learn more about New York’s redistricting saga here. ([link removed])

In Alabama, pro-voting plaintiffs ** submitted ([link removed])
reply briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court, responding to Republican Secretary of State Wes Allen’s request to pause a lower court ruling in ** Allen v. Milligan ([link removed])
. Later in the week, the state ** submitted ([link removed])
its reply brief to the pro-voting parties in the congressional redistricting case before the Supreme Court, arguing that Alabama has been "maligned as engaging in 'open rebellion'" by the courts when the state enacted a new map with only one majority-Black district.
* Two weeks ago, a federal three-judge panel ** blocked ([link removed])
Alabama's new congressional map because it does not have two majority-Black districts as required by a federal court order. Allen appealed this decision and asked the Supreme Court to pause the decision blocking the map while the appeal is ongoing.

Meanwhile, Louisiana Republicans ** asked ([link removed])
the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to block a lower court from holding a hearing about enacting a new congressional map. The district court previously ordered the state to redraw its map to contain two majority-Black districts.

To the northeast, the Kentucky Supreme Court ** heard ([link removed])
oral argument in a lawsuit challenging Kentucky’s new state House and congressional maps. The court will decide if Kentucky courts can review partisan gerrymandering claims under the state's current laws.
** ([link removed])

** How Expansive Mail-in Voting Policies and an Efficient USPS Increase Voter Turnout ([link removed])

By Devon Hesano

What Are We to Do With Ohio?

On Wednesday, during the Ohio Redistricting Commission’s (ORC) ** first meetin ([link removed])
** g ([link removed])
since it was reconstituted, the ORC ** voted ([link removed])
4-2 along party lines to use legislative maps proposed by Republican commission members, who also serve in the Legislature, as the ORC’s working draft, which will be subject to public review. The maps would maintain the Republican stranglehold on the Legislature, due to egregious ** partisan gerrymandering ([link removed])
.
* The seven-member ** commission ([link removed])
is composed of Gov. Mike DeWine (R), Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) and other partisan lawmakers. Republicans have a 5-2 majority.

Before this sixth round of map drawing, the Ohio Supreme Court ** struck down ([link removed])
the Republican commissioners’ legislative maps five separate times for being partisan gerrymanders in favor of Republicans, but Republicans’ delay tactics forced Ohioans to vote under ** illegal maps ([link removed])
in 2022.

The Republicans’ Senate ** proposal ([link removed])
contains 23 Republican seats, compared to just 10 Democratic seats. The partisan discrepancy was no different in the Republicans’ House map, which contains 62 Republican districts and 37 Democratic districts. ** Currently ([link removed])
, Democrats hold just 32 House seats and seven Senate seats, compared to 67 and 26 Republican seats, respectively.

The GOP-backed proposals come a day after Democrats on the commission ** released ([link removed])
their own legislative maps, which the ORC ** voted ([link removed])
down on Wednesday, also along party lines. Introduced by Antonio and Ohio House Minority Leader Allison Russo (D), the maps would have drastically leveled the playing field of the currently gerrymandered Legislature as Democrats would have held 43 House seats and 14 Senate seats, while Republicans would have held 56 and 19 seats, respectively.

LaRose previously ** said ([link removed])
that the commission should have maps approved by Sept. 22, but that timeline has been thrown into doubt after last week’s delays and DeWine’s recent COVID-19 ** diagnosis ([link removed])
. Mid-October is now ** more likely ([link removed])
.

** Read more about Ohio’s long journey to fair maps here. ([link removed])

All of this comes as citizens fight to regain access to the electoral process via ballot measures.
* On Tuesday, the state’s Supreme Court ** ordered ([link removed])
a small tweak to the GOP rewrite of ballot language for an abortion rights amendment that will be before voters in November and if passed, would enshrine the right to reproductive freedom in the Ohio Constitution. Reproductive rights groups argue that the ballot language, written by Republican officials including LaRose, is still misleading. The court allowed most of the Republican-controlled ballot board’s language to remain in place.
+ Previously, the language stated that the proposed amendment would “[p]rohibit the citizens of the State of Ohio from directly or indirectly burdening, penalizing, or prohibiting abortion before an unborn child is determined to be viable unless the State demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means.”
+ The court agreed that the phrase “citizens of the state” — instead of “the state” — is misleading since it “suggests that amendment could restrict certain activities of private citizens, such as protesting outside an abortion clinic” and ordered a slight change.
* For a second time, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R) ** rejected ([link removed])
ballot language for a proposed amendment to the Ohio Constitution that would create a citizen-led, independent redistricting commission in the state. Citizens Not Politicians, the pro-voting group that submitted the language, vowed to collect new signatures in order to refile the language again.

New York Celebrates National Voter Registration Day a Day Late But Not a Dollar Short

On Wednesday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) ** signed ([link removed])
a package of 10 bills into law that expand voting rights and promote democracy in the state. Senate Deputy Leader Michael Gianaris (D), who championed the bills in the Senate, argued that “it should be a fundamental principle of democracy that the more people vote, the better it is.”

Thanks to the Early Mail Voter Act, New York is now the ** 36th state ([link removed])
to allow all voters the option to vote by mail. The package of bills will allow New Yorkers to ** same-day register ([link removed])
on the first day of early voting, ** crackdown ([link removed])
on faithless electors by requiring presidential electors to vote for the candidates nominated by their party and ** require ([link removed])
schools to adopt policies to educate prospective voters before they turn 18.
* Hours after being signed into law, the Republican National Committee (RNC) and other Republicans ** sued ([link removed])
over the New York Early Mail Voter Act. The GOP argues that the law, which allows all voters to vote by mail during the early voting period, violates the New York Constitution.

* Not afraid of being redundant, the New York Republican Party and other conservatives also ** filed ([link removed])
a lawsuit over the state's 2021 mail-in voting law at the end of August. The law allows pre-canvassing of absentee ballots and prevents legal challenges to already cast absentee ballots. The groups allege that the law violates the state constitution and ask for it to be blocked for the 2024 elections. Doubling down on litigation and challenging a two-year old law is an impressive commitment to attacking access to the ballot box, especially when the RNC is actively ** encouraging ([link removed])
Republicans to embrace mail-in voting.

You Get a Vote! You Get a Vote! You All Get Votes!

In addition to the expansion of democracy in the Empire State, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) ** announced ([link removed])
the start of automatic voter registration in the commonwealth this week. Eligible Pennsylvanians renewing or getting a new ID at a department of motor vehicles will now be automatically registered to vote unless they opt out.
* In a legal win for voters, a federal judge ** struck down ([link removed])
parts of Arizona voter suppression law House Bill 2492 that created strict proof of citizenship requirements to vote. Other provisions of the law will be challenged at trial in November.
* Voting and civil rights attorney Allison Riggs was ** sworn ([link removed])
in as a justice on the North Carolina Supreme Court. This is especially welcome news as Republican legislators in the Tar Heel state continue to enact restrictive voting legislation, like ** Senate Bill 747 ([link removed])
.
* In California, a Santa Monica neighborhood is harnessing the state’s Voting Rights Act to advocate for itself. ** Read more about the fight here. ([link removed])

On Tuesday, in an attempt to bring the progress we love to celebrate to every American, U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) ** led ([link removed])
every House Democrat in reintroducing the landmark John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to restore critical voter protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
** ([link removed])

** Congress Must Restore and Modernize the Voting Rights Act ([link removed])

By Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.)

Is It Democracy If Millions Are Locked Out?

As we celebrate the democratic progress across the country this week, it is critical to remember that progress is often not felt equally. According to the Sentencing Project’s 2022 report Locked Out, there are an estimated 4.6 million people ** prevented ([link removed])
from participating in the electoral process. That’s 2% of the nation’s voting-age population.

These Americans are often kept from exercising their fundamental right to vote due to post-Reconstruction era laws that ** sought to maintain ([link removed])
white supremacy in the lawmaking process. This barrier — commonly referred to as ** felony disenfranchisement ([link removed])
— is the denial of voting rights on the basis of a felony conviction.

As discussed in last week’s ** podcast ([link removed])
, a ** recent decision in Mississippi ([link removed])
from the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to ** strike down ([link removed])
the state’s Jim Crow-era “cruel and unusual” felony disenfranchisement law may restore the right to vote to thousands. Organizations like the ** Mississippi Center for Justice ([link removed])
and ** Mississippi Votes ([link removed])
are fighting to see that restoration come to fruition.

There is
** litigation in five states ([link removed])
, including Mississippi, that is seeking to force a reckoning with these racist laws and, as a result of the lawsuits, over two million people could regain the right to vote.

What’s a State To Do When It Leaves ERIC?

On Monday, Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen (R) ** announced ([link removed])
the Alabama Voter Integrity Database, an in-state database that will be used to help maintain voter registration rolls after the state left the bipartisan ** Election Information Registration Center ([link removed])
(ERIC).

Also this week, Ohio announced it will ** share ([link removed])
voter information with Florida, Virginia and West Virginia in an effort to maintain voter rolls after the four Republican-led states left the data group due to right-wing conspiracy theories. In total, ** nine states ([link removed])
have left ERIC since early 2022 and all are developing varying solutions to a self-created void ahead of 2024.
** ([link removed])

** Over Two Million People Stand to Regain the Right to Vote in Five States ([link removed])

By Paige Anderholm

More News
* In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp (R), Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), the Republican National Committee, the Georgia Republican Party and national Republican committees ** appealed ([link removed])
a district court decision blocking parts of Georgia voter suppression law ** Senate Bill 202 ([link removed].)
.
* After Wisconsin's Republican-controlled Senate ** voted ([link removed])
to remove Meagan Wolfe as leader of the state’s elections commission, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) ** filed ([link removed])
a lawsuit arguing that the Senate lacks the power to unseat Wolfe.
+ Hoping to avoid the state’s Supreme Court and its new liberal majority, Wisconsin’s Republican-led Assembly ** passed ([link removed])
a bill to create a "nonpartisan" redistricting process that would still give lawmakers final say over maps. Democratic legislators and Gov. Tony Evers (D) slammed the proposal, which now goes to the state Senate.
* In Minnesota, a conservative group ** filed ([link removed])
a lawsuit challenging a provision of the state’s ** Democracy for the People Act ([link removed])
that makes it a misdemeanor to knowingly spread false information about an election. The group argues the law violates the First and 14th Amendments.

OPINION: A Blue Texas Is In Reach
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By Maria Teresa Kumar, the president and CEO of ** Voto Latino ([link removed])
. ** Read more ([link removed])
➡️
What We're Doing

We are reading reporting from the local news outlet, Alabama Political Reporter, which ** revealed ([link removed])
an apparent connection between Alabama officials involved in the drawing of the state's noncompliant maps and a far-right dark money group.

The news builds on a ** previous report ([link removed])
by the outlet that claimed that Alabama lawmakers had connections suggesting that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was open to rehearing ** Allen v. Milligan ([link removed])
on its merits.

It’s Hispanic Heritage Month! Did you know Latinos now ** outnumber ([link removed])
non-Hispanic whites in Texas and that the Latino population is disproportionately young? ** Learn more ([link removed])
from Democracy Docket guest author Maria Teresa Kumar about what that means for the future of politics in Texas.
** ([link removed])

Want to show your support for voting rights this fall? When you snag a t-shirt, get a sticker for free!

** Shop our Democracy Docket t-shirt bundle and more today. ([link removed])

On this week’s episode of Defending Democracy, Marc and Paige speak with Rep. Greta Neubauer, the Assembly Minority Leader in Wisconsin, about all things Badger State. From the looming unprecedented impeachment of a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice to the attempted removal of the state’s top election official, there’s a lot to cover! Listen on ** Apple ([link removed])
, ** Spotify ([link removed])
or ** wherever you get your podcasts ([link removed])
.
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