Gerrymandering/Redistricting

“For nearly a decade, Dan has been an integral part of our fight for fair maps that strengthen the voice of all Americans,” said Marilyn Carpinteyro, Common Cause interim co-president.

Voting is the cornerstone of our democracy and the fundamental right that makes possible all other civil liberties and policy decisions. But a threat to that right now comes before the ballot box: Redistricting, which can make or break a community’s ability to participate in our democracy. It determines who does — and does not — have fair representation.

“It’s what I call selective outrage,” said Jay Heck, a longtime observer of the Wisconsin Supreme Court and director of Common Cause of Wisconsin, a nonpartisan government watchdog group. “It’s incredibly hypocritical.” There was no outrage from Republicans when conservative justices heard numerous cases over the years involving their conservative donors, Heck said. “The rules and parameters of recusal were put in place by the conservatives and by the Republicans,” said Heck, with Common Cause. “If they don’t like the way the situation is now, all they have to do is look at their own behavior.”

"The Alabama legislature's defiance of a clear mandate from the Supreme Court to discriminate against Black voters is so brazen, a delaying tactic seems to be the only explanation that makes any sense," says Dan Vicuna, director of redistricting and representation at the advocacy group Common Cause. "I think it's not going to sit well with the Supreme Court," he says.

Jonathan Mehta Stein, the executive director of California Common Cause, which closely monitored the redistricting process, said he believed there was also a larger political goal: “They pulled her base out from under her to have her turn down the volume on behalf of renters,” he said.

The reform proposals that voters adopted during the last decade to stop gerrymandering were thwarted because redistricting remained in the hands of politicians, says Common Cause Ohio Executive Director Catherine Turcer. Now, she’s supporting a new citizen initiative that would put an independent citizen commission in charge of mapmaking. She said states that redistricted through independent citizen commissions got legislative and congressional district lines that didn’t unfairly favor one party or another. “Ohioans put good rules into the Ohio Constitution, and those rules would have been adequate if elected officials had actually followed them rather than drawing lines that favored one political party,” says Turcer. “These folks are drunk on power. What do you do with someone who is drunk? You take away their keys.” Turcer, Miller, and others who back the upcoming proposal for an independent commission say legislative maps in Arizona, California, Colorado and Michigan became more competitive after they were drawn by an independent commission.