John,

Here are some democracy updates from the last few days you may have missed:

California, Arizona and New Jersey Approve New Congressional Districts

• California, the most populous state in the country, completed redistricting last Tuesday when the Citizens Redistricting Commission unanimously approved new congressional and legislative maps. While California lost one congressional district, the new congressional map overall is friendly to Democratic incumbents and makes several of the state’s Republican-held districts more competitive. Read the full alert here.


• Arizona’s Independent Redistricting Commission approved a new congressional map last Wednesday after a contentious process in which Independent chair Erika Neuberg repeatedly sided with Republican members. Arizona’s 1st and 6th Districts were drawn to be highly competitive, with the possibility of a 6-3 Republican split in 2022. Read more about the new map here.


• Finally, the New Jersey Congressional Redistricting Commission also approved new districts on Wednesday. The commission’s tiebreaker, former New Jersey Supreme Court Justice John Wallace, Jr., cast a vote in favor of the Democrats’ proposal that creates safer districts for three Democratic incumbents while keeping Rep. Tom Malinowski’s (D) district highly competitive. Read the full alert here.

Republicans File Lawsuits Against Maryland’s Congressional Districts

• The Maryland General Assembly passed a congressional map over Gov. Larry Hogan’s (R) veto earlier this month. The new map makes the district held by Rep. Andy Harris (R) more competitive.


• Since then, two Republican-backed lawsuits have been filed against the new districts. Both lawsuits allege the map is a partisan gerrymander that dilutes the voting strength of Republicans. The first suit was brought by Judicial Watch, a far-right organization tied to numerous lawsuits pushing unfounded allegations of voter fraud, while the second was brought by Fair Maps Maryland on behalf of Republican voters and House of Delegates members. Read more about the Judicial Watch suit here and the Fair Maps Maryland suit here.

Lawsuit in Wisconsin Seeks To Challenge Voter Purge

• Last Wednesday, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the deactivation of over 31,000 Wisconsin voter registrations last summer. The complaint alleges the registrations were canceled without proper notice and asks the court to reactivate the registrations ahead of the 2022 election. Read more about the case here.

Can’t get enough news? You can always find more details about these updates on our Alerts page.

Thanks for staying in the fight,
Team Democracy Docket