Redistricting happens every 10 years, after each U. This means that after the census is completed, new lines will be drawn for several types of voting districts :. Explore the district maps. Find your representatives. In the U. Senate, where each state gets two senators, no matter what. As populations change and move around, we need to update the size and shape of districts, so each lawmaker continues to represent a fair portion of the population.
In , the Supreme Court ruled that the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution requires that voting districts be equal in population. Article 1, Section 4 of the Constitution gives the states primary authority to regulate federal elections, including congressional redistricting.
Sign Up. But in most states, legislators can draw election districts in ways that manipulate the map for their own interests—called gerrymandering. For example, gerrymandering can tilt the playing field in favor of the politicians or party in power.
When elected officials are given exclusive, unfettered power to manipulate district lines, voters lose. Members of the U. House of Representatives are re-elected 97 percent of the time. In , Democrats in the U. House of Representatives received 1. Politicians are able to use this technology to slice and dice voters into districts along partisan and racial lines more precisely than ever before. Americans are taking matters into their own hands by advancing redistricting reforms to revitalize their elected representation and by filing lawsuits challenging corrupted district maps.
People are winning victories for policy reforms, such as the recent success in California, where voters passed an initiative to set up an independent redistricting commission. Since , lawsuits challenging district lines have been filed across the country, 32 of which are still active. Also in November , a federal court ordered North Carolina lawmakers to redraw their state legislative districts after finding that lawmakers unconstitutionally relied on race when drawing district boundaries.
Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in two redistricting cases involving challenges to districts in Virginia and North Carolina. Some states are not waiting around for a court ruling to make their redistricting processes fairer and more representative. Several states have established independent redistricting commissions, and Florida incorporated clear criteria governing the process of drawing districts into its state constitution.
Americans are tired of having their voting power and representation manipulated by politicians who draw district maps to further their own interests.
If citizens want elected representatives who reflect their priorities and preferences, they must push for reforms that will result in fair boundaries for election districts. The Center for American Progress recommends that states:.
By putting these mechanisms in place, reflective and responsive representation may be fully realized and enjoyed by all Americans. Each decade, jurisdictions redraw the maps that determine their electoral districts to account for changing demographics. Districts are usually drawn by elected officials in the state legislature or city councils or, in a few places, by independent commissions. In other jurisdictions, an independent commission is responsible for drawing district maps, but the legislature has final approval.
The Supreme Court has read the U. Those who draw maps for elections must also be cognizant of elected representation for communities of color. In cases challenging post Census maps, federal courts have reiterated that states cannot use this requirement to pack African American voters into majority-minority districts, unless that is actually required to preserve their ability to elect their preferred candidates. Some jurisdictions allow the public to review the plans prior to implementation.
In some jurisdictions, members of the public submit district maps for consideration. Other states allow citizens or state judges to vote on proposed maps, while others require review of all district maps by state judges before they are put into effect. Some states do not require public review or input at all. When district lines are manipulated, the democratic process is turned on its head. Voters may not be able to elect who they want, while map drawers are able to skew election results to favor themselves.
And when politicians are guaranteed to win because gerrymandering has effectively precluded competitive elections, it diminishes responsiveness, accountability, and the potential for fair representation of all their constituents. Redistricting can skew representation. In Pennsylvania in , Democratic candidates received roughly 50 percent of the votes in House races, but Republicans took 75 percent of congressional seats.
On the state level, despite Democrats in Ohio winning more than 50 percent of the popular vote cast for the state legislature in , Democratic members held just 39 of 99 seats in the wake of that election. When politicians manipulate election maps, they can stifle competition and ensure incumbent candidates keep their seats. Because of gerrymandering, the political majorities of the incoming state legislatures in eight states were already decided before even a single vote was cast in the general election, while seven state legislature majorities were decided even before the primary election.
As a result, they are able to pass laws that are averse to the interests and desires of those they represent. For example, in Michigan, where elected leaders have a long history of manipulating district lines, controversial legislation has been funneled through the state legislature, despite vehement opposition from voters.
In November , the same year as the last census, conservative state legislators rode the so-called tea party wave to take control of state legislatures across the country. Challenges can be brought against the way districts are apportioned at the federal, state, or local level. For decades, the Supreme Court has recognized that if legislators draw maps with the improper goal of gaining too much partisan advantage and hobbling their political opponents, they could violate the Constitution.
The problem of improper partisan gerrymandering has grown in recent decades, and while a few maps favor Democrats, most favor Republican politicians. Pennsylvania Republicans had a four-seat advantage. The federal court in the Wisconsin case recently struck down the map of state legislative districts for partisan gerrymandering under this new measure of manipulation. The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Redistricting.
These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles. State-by-state redistricting procedures - Google News. Ballotpedia features , encyclopedic articles written and curated by our professional staff of editors, writers, and researchers. Click here to contact our editorial staff, and click here to report an error. Click here to contact us for media inquiries, and please donate here to support our continued expansion.
Share this page Follow Ballotpedia. What's on your ballot? Jump to: navigation , search. Congressional redistricting : In 33 states, state legislatures play the dominant role in congressional redistricting.
State legislative redistricting : In 33 states, state legislatures play the dominant role in state legislative redistricting. In three states, hybrid systems are used. File:The Gerry-Mander Edit. In contrast with racial gerrymandering, on which the Supreme Court of the United States has issued rulings in the past affirming that such practices violate federal law, the high court had not, as of November , issued a ruling establishing clear precedent on the question of partisan gerrymandering.
Although the court has granted in past cases that partisan gerrymandering can violate the United States Constitution, it has never adopted a standard for identifying or measuring partisan gerrymanders.
Partisan gerrymandering is described in greater detail in this article. Gill v. Whitford See also: Gill v. Whitford In Gill v. Harris See also: Cooper v. Harris In Cooper v. Abbott See also: Evenwel v. Abbott Evenwel v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source. Categories : Pages with broken file links Redistricting concepts and issues Redistricting tracking. Hidden category: Election policy expansion content.
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How do I update a page? Election results. Privacy policy About Ballotpedia Disclaimers Login. Elsewhere, some other entity draws the lines. Hawaii , New Jersey , and Virginia use politician commissions for congressional districts. Each, again, is a bit different. In Arkansas and Ohio , specific elected officials have designated seats on the commission. In the other states, the legislative or party leadership nominates at least some commissioners, usually with balanced numbers from each party, and sometimes with a role for the Governor or Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court to select nominees or appoint additional members of the commission.
In Virginia , the commission consists of eight legislators and eight more independent citizen commissioners — because any plan must be approved by six of the eight legislative commissioners and six of the eight citizen commissioners, it may end up in practice functioning more like an independent commission. The remaining states — Alaska , Arizona , California , Colorado , Idaho , Michigan , Montana , New York , and Washington — all draw both state and federal districts using an independent commission, with regulations limiting direct participation by elected officials.
Alaska currently has only one congressional representative and thus does not need to draw congressional lines. Members of these commissions are neither legislators nor public officials. Each state other than Colorado and New York also bans commissioners from running for office in the districts they draw, at least for a few years after the commission finishes its work. New York and Washington allow the legislature to override their independent commissions with a supermajority, though statutes limit the extent of the modifications.
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