03/25/2022
Wisconsin Redistricting and KBJ Hearings
On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court responded to two requests regarding Wisconsin redistricting. First, the Court rejected an application from Republican congressmen seeking to throw out the new congressional map. This means that the congressional map proposed by Gov. Tony Evers (D) and selected by the Wisconsin Supreme Court will stand.
However, the Court remanded the legislative maps back to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The adopted maps had created new majority-Black state Assembly and state Senate districts. In their application to the Supreme Court, the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature argued that the new districts were not required under the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and thus, the maps were racial gerrymanders. The Court agreed with the Legislature in an unsigned opinion.
To recap what went down on the shadow docket this week:
- Congressional map = U.S. House of Representatives districts → upheld ✅
- This is a win for voters, as the Court rejected efforts to undermine a least-change, court-adopted map.
- Legislative maps = Wisconsin state Assembly & Senate districts → struck down ❌
- The Court threw out legislative maps that improved representation for Black voters in Wisconsin. However, the issue at hand was about process, not substance, with a majority of the justices finding that the state Supreme Court did not conduct a proper VRA analysis on the need for majority-Black districts.
The other big U.S. Supreme Court news this week took place outside of the courthouse and in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing room. For several days, SCOTUS nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson fielded questions from senators. Get the rundown on Judge Jackson’s background here.
Despite the recent decline in court protections for voting rights, only a few senators asked about the right to vote. We heard a question from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), and Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) later followed up about the Supreme Court’s dismantling of the VRA in recent years. As we await the confirmation of this new, history-making justice, we turned back the clock and reviewed crucial voting rights cases decided by the Supreme Court in “Ten Voting Rights Cases That Shaped History.”
ID Laws Advance While Other Bills Falter in the Southwest
There are new voting restrictions moving in Utah and Arizona. On Tuesday, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) signed a bill into law that requires voters who did not provide identification during registration to present it before voting (and in a state that predominantly votes by mail, those voters will now have to include a photocopy of their ID with their mail-in ballot). The enacted law also requires 24-hour video surveillance of ballot drop boxes, a lieutenant governor-led audit and more.
In neighboring Arizona, the Legislature passed a bill that requires all Arizonans to provide documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, endangering the voter registrations of large numbers of Arizonans. The bill has yet to be signed into law by the governor.
The Arizona Republican Party is a hotbed for conspiracy-theory led election laws, but this was the first to advance out of the Legislature. Similarly, a Utah bill that would repeal the state’s longstanding mail-in voting system and take other drastic measures has died in the House.
New Hampshire’s Tussle Over Two Districts
They only had to move one town. Last week, the New Hampshire Legislature approved a controversial congressional map that makes significant changes to the state’s two congressional districts. Gov. Chris Sununu (R) has vowed to veto the plan and released his own proposal on Tuesday. Sununu’s proposal would keep the 1st District, currently held by Rep. Chris Pappas (D), competitive, but significantly less Republican-leaning than the version passed by the Legislature.
The 2020 census data showed a difference of around 18,000 residents between New Hampshire's two districts. Democrats proposed one simple change: to move one town, Hampstead, from the 1st to 2nd District. Instead, Republican lawmakers decided to make the most significant shifts to the districts in over a century.
After months of Republican infighting, a congressional map finally passed the Missouri Senate Thursday afternoon. Similar to the map passed by the state House several months ago, the plan maintains Missouri’s six Republican and two Democratic seats (as opposed to the 7-1 map preferred by the GOP hardliners). This map must be approved by the House ahead of an impending candidate filing deadline next Tuesday.
New Lawsuit in Arkansas While the Ohio Odyssey Continues
Voters demand a fair congressional map in Arkansas. Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) recognized that the new map split Black communities across districts and refused to sign it into law, but the map was enacted without his signature. A new lawsuit was filed on Monday, focusing on how the new map divides Pulaski County, home to the largest Black population in Arkansas, between three of the state’s four congressional districts. Arkansas is the only state with a Black population above 10% that has never elected a Black representative to Congress.
Fourth time’s the charm? The Ohio Redistricting Commission has until March 28 to pass new legislative maps after the state Supreme Court struck down the state’s third set of maps. Every single legislative plan the Commission has passed has been thrown out for favoring Republicans in violation of the Ohio Constitution.
- On Wednesday, Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) ordered the removal of state House and Senate races from the May 3 primary election as litigation continues.
- At the same time, Republicans behind an impasse suit in federal court are asking a three-judge panel to reinstate the (already blocked) third set maps for upcoming elections.
- We wrote a helpful twitter thread to get you up to speed on what’s been going on with the Buckeye State’s legislative maps. Find it all here. 👇🧵
Meanwhile, the state Supreme Court is also reviewing Ohio’s second congressional map. On Monday, a new lawsuit was filed after the Court ruled that it could not review the second map under the original lawsuits. The new lawsuit argues that the revised map “bears a striking resemblance” to the first map struck down by the state Supreme Court in January, suggesting that the Republicans who drew the map ignored the court’s order to draw a fair map.
AND MORE:
Arkansas Judge STRIKES DOWN Four Voter Suppression Laws
Last Friday, four Arkansas voter suppression laws passed in 2021 were struck down. On the final day of a four-day trial, Judge Wendell Griffen ruled from the bench that all four challenged laws violate the Arkansas Constitution. Yesterday, the Judge Griffen entered the written order and defendants filed a notice of appeal soon after. Griffen wrote:
“Defendants concede that concerns about voter fraud and election insecurity in Arkansas are baseless and fabricated. Conjecture, speculation, surmise, misinformation, baseless, and fabricated concerns about voter fraud and election insecurity does not constitute competent evidence.”
This marks the first court ruling on a voter suppression law passed following the 2020 election. Find all the facts you need to know about the challenged laws in our Case Watch, “Challenging Arkansas’ Four New Voter Suppression Laws.”
What happened before this case went to trial? What can we expect now? Voting rights cases can take winding roads through the court system before they are resolved. Read our latest Explainer, “The Life Cycle of a Voting Rights Case,” to understand how these lawsuits move through the court system.
We Need To Change the Way We Elect Members of Congress
By Charlotte Hill and Lee Drutman, political scientists and co-founders of Fix Our House, a new campaign for proportional representation. Read more ➡️
Can anything be done about the Alabama map this election cycle?
Unfortunately, no. There were three cases brought against the congressional map. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court paused the decision made by the lower court that there must be a second majority-Black district. While I'm profoundly disappointed, the case will likely be heard before the Supreme Court on the merits next term and hopefully the map can change before 2024.
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As more and more voters vote by mail, what can be done to prevent ballot rejections due to signature matching or other errors?
This is a big problem and it’s not just a red state problem. The fact is, when people vote in person the rate of rejection is near zero. By contrast, when you vote by mail in some states, 3-4% of the ballots are rejected. That is a tragedy for democracy because those people are given the illusion of voting — they have completed a ballot only to find out (or in some instances, to not find out) that their vote didn't count.
Thanks to Janelle and Sylvia for asking questions this week – feel free to ask your own here or join today’s Twitter Spaces at 2 p.m. to ask Marc directly.
This week we witnessed callous attacks on Judge Jackson by Republican senators during her confirmation hearing. As a well-qualified nominee, we’re calling our senators to support Jackson’s confirmation.
There are numerous aspects of election administration. Consequently, the more technical (but nonetheless important) features, like voter roll maintenance, can get overlooked. Over the past month, Votebeat’s Jessica Huseman wrote a fantastic series on the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), an opt-in, information-sharing system for states to maintain their voter rolls. Learn more about Louisiana’s inexplicable decision to pull out of ERIC, and the implications of this organization here:
