redistricting

OneVirginia2021 has a steep climb ahead of them. They're attempting to take the politics out of redistricting with a bipartisan effort to make democracy in Virginia a real thing again. We'll see if they can actually push it through a legislature who – on both ends – have used the process for their own gain.

A "reform" bill that would have redistricted Michigan in a way favorable for the GOP minority — e.g., Romney would have won the state's electoral votes despite losing the popular vote were it in play for 2012 — has resurfaced in the state house. Many term-limited Republicans are backing the bill without fear of reprisal from upcoming elections.

Efforts are underway in Virginia to put a constitutional amendment on the November 2016 ballot that aims to take political redistricting out of the hands of politicians. The group is proposing a plan that would give the job to a panel of judges and legislators, but it doesn't go far enough in establishing logical boundaries to keep the process clean of political gerrymandering.

If Texas wants to pass laws with discriminatory intent, redistricting schemes that are unconstitutional, or photo voter ID laws that will have a retrogressive effect on minority voters, John Cornyn is A-OK with that, and the senator wants to make sure you know it.

The executive director of the ACLU of Virginia called the Supreme Court's decision to overturn the Voting Rights Act could be a potential "death blow" for the 1965 law's Section 5, which prevented voter disenfranchisement mostly due to unfair redistricting. As late as 2003, the VRA stopped Republican efforts to "pack" African-American voters into a fewer districts or "dilute" the power of black voters in majority-white districts in Virginia.

Despite appeals from small businesses, health care professionals, ordinary citizens, Michigan companies and job providers — and even Gov. Rick Snyder, their party's standard-bearer — Michigan's Senate Republicans went on summer vacation and refused to vote on a plan that would help more than 400,000 Michiganders (including 7,000 veterans) get access to health care.

California's redistricting commission wasn't the most popular idea when it was first introduced, but its apparent success seems to have made it a populist idea — and a potential model for other states.

Rick Perry is desperate to get his discriminatory redistricting map passed because a new, legal map would be drawn by a San Antonio federal court. The daily cost to taxpayers of the craven, politically-motivated special session to get this done? $35,000.

Rick "Sorry, oops" Perry has called a special session of the legislature to attempt to implement interim redistricting maps based on previous maps which were found by the courts to be intentionally discriminatory against minorities.

With the Supreme Court set to take up the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act on Wednesday in one of the most momentous cases this term, here's a look at the history of Section 5 in Texas.