Dem
47
GOP
53
As various states are in a gerrymandering arms race to try to see who can guarantee their party the most seats, courts have been busy striking down maps as illegal.
First up is Alabama, where Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is still alive and well. U.S. District Judge Anna Manasco, a Donald Trump appointee, struck down the state Senate map and ordered a new map be drawn in time for the 2026 elections. She held that the state Senate district around the capital of Montgomery violated Section 2 by diluting the votes of Black voters. She ordered a new district to be drawn so that Black voters "comprise a voting-age majority or something quite close to it." Manasco further held that the Court will redraw the districts itself if the legislature doesn't act in time for the 2026 elections. She did reject the claim that a second district, based around Huntsville, violates the VRA. Last year, Alabama had to redraw its Congressional district map to create a new majority-Black district. In the state legislature, Republicans hold lopsided majorities, so the balance of power will not be affected by Manasco's ruling.
In Utah, state District Court Judge Dianna Gibson, an appointee of Republican former governor Gary Herbert, struck down Utah's Congressional map as a violation of a voter-backed initiative that established an independent commission to prevent partisan gerrymandering. "The nature of the violation lies in the Legislature's refusal to respect the people's exercise of their constitutional lawmaking power and to honor the people's right to reform their government," Gibson wrote.
The Court ordered new maps to be drawn immediately so they can be used in the 2026 elections. Gibson gave the legislature until September 24 to submit them and also allowed voting rights groups who are parties to the case to submit alternate proposals. Republicans will, of course, appeal, which could run out the clock, but this case has already been before the state Supreme Court once, which held that the legislature can't repeal laws passed by voter initiative. The Court sent the case back to the lower court to determine if the maps needed to be redrawn, which the lower court has now ordered. So, any appeals could be fast-tracked, given that the district court did exactly what it was ordered to do.
There is a pretty dispiriting backstory here. In 2018, Utah voters passed an initiative to create an independent commission to draw state and congressional maps, which the legislature was required to consider. Instead, they repealed the law in 2020, and changed the commission's status to "advisory board," one that they then decided to ignore. If new, non-gerrymandered maps are drawn, this could impact Utah's delegation, as the state-drawn map carved up Salt Lake County, the blue dot in an otherwise red sea, into four reliably Republican districts.
This may seem to parallel the situation in California, but there are a couple of differences. First, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has made clear that the legislature is not repealing or ignoring the independent redistricting commission that California voters created; instead, they're asking voters to modify temporarily the commission's role. Some might dismiss that as empty rhetoric, maybe justly so, but the second difference is pretty significant. California voters are being asked to approve/reject changes to a law that California voters previously approved. In Utah, it was the legislature that made the change, not the voters who approved the commission.
Finally, in Louisiana, which must be experiencing whiplash by now, a unanimous panel on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court decision that found that Louisiana's state legislative maps violate Section 2 of the VRA by discriminating against Black voters. The lower court had found that the boundaries diluted Black votes so they had no fair opportunity to elect their own representatives. Mirroring their argument in the Supreme Court, the state argued that Section 2 is unconstitutional, but the Fifth Circuit disagreed. It held that Congress enacted Section 2 "based on overwhelming evidence that 'sterner and more elaborate measures' were needed to address 'an insidious and pervasive evil" of laws designed to disenfranchise Black voters. Given that the U.S. Supreme Court has just scheduled oral arguments to decide this very question for Louisiana's Congressional maps, it will be very interesting to see how this plays out and what maps will be used in 2026. (L)