Jack, last year's election was a huge one not just because it was our last, best chance to evict Sweet Potato Putin from the White House, but because those races determined who would control the decennial redistricting process.
Right now, states across the country are redrawing their electoral maps. The lines they adopt will establish districts for congressional and state legislative elections for the next decade. It is genuinely impossible to overstate just how important this is. It is, simply put, one of the most critical electoral processes in the entire American political system—and it gets almost no attention at all from traditional media outlets. But it does here at Daily Kos.
Before I show you just how in-depth our coverage of the redistricting process is, I have to ask:
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Daily Kos Elections is following every twist and turn of the redistricting process in all 50 states. Just this week, we have seen several major developments. As we've been reporting in our daily newsletter, the Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest:
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AZ Redistricting: Arizona's independent redistricting commission unanimously voted to release its first draft congressional map on Tuesday, but commissioners cautioned that it's only a template to which further changes will be made. One way you can be certain it's far from final is that the smallest district has about 15,000 fewer people than the largest; barring very specific circumstances (which don't obtain here), the Supreme Court allows no population deviation at all between congressional districts.
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CO Redistricting: Two Latino advocacy groups say they plan to contest Colorado's new congressional redistricting proposal, which they argue dilutes the voting power of minority communities in contravention of the state constitution. The state Democratic Party also says it has concerns about whether the commission faithfully followed a separate directive to maximize the number of competitive districts.
The Latino organizations say they plan to file a brief with the state Supreme Court, which must approve any maps before they can take effect, while the state party is "reviewing its legal options." The Colorado branch of the good-government group Common Cause says it, too, might join those making submissions to the court, which are due by Friday. The justices will then hold oral arguments on Tuesday before rendering a decision by Nov. 1. If they reject the map, commissioners would get a second chance to draw another one to address the court's objections.
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TX Redistricting: Texas' Republican-run legislature has advanced several redistricting plans that they'd recently proposed, all of which would lock in GOP gerrymanders. Before the full state Senate, Republican lawmakers passed a new map for the chamber's own districts, while a committee approved a new congressional map, both with some tweaks to prior versions. Meanwhile, in the state House, a committee signed off on a new map for the lower chamber on a party-line vote, again with some modifications.
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AR Redistricting: Committees in both chambers of Arkansas' Republican-run legislature have advanced a new congressional redistricting proposal that would split Pulaski County between three districts, dividing up the state's largest source of Democratic votes and weakening the electoral influence of Black voters.
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IN Redistricting: Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed new congressional and legislative maps on Monday that were passed by fellow Republicans in the legislature late last week. The maps ensure outsize dominance for the GOP through partisan gerrymandering, as we detailed in our earlier coverage.
You won't find reporting like this anywhere else on the internet. But we make it available to you and everyone else—for free. Of course, it costs us time and money to do this sort of thing. That's why I'm asking you:
Please donate $5 right now to support Daily Kos Elections if you haven't already.
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Thank you,
David Nir, Political Director
Daily Kos
P.S. If you'd like to stay on top of all the latest redistricting news, then you can sign up for Daily Kos Elections' free daily newsletter, the Morning Digest, by clicking here.
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