Gerrymandering/Redistricting

“In a radical power grab, self-serving politicians want to defy our state’s highest court and impose illegal voting districts upon the people of North Carolina,” said Bob Phillips of Common Cause, North Carolina, which brought the lawsuit that overturned the GOP-drawn maps. “We will continue to stand up for the people of our state and nation as this case goes to the U.S. Supreme Court. We must stop this dangerous attack on our freedom to vote.”

Kathay Feng, the national redistricting director at the good government group Common Cause, compared preclearance to the ability to prevent a repeat arson. “But unfortunately, with Shelby County, we have to allow a building to burn down before we can go and seek some kind of justice and by then the harm has already happened,” she said.

"One of the upsides, even when you have a lousy commission, is that you have created enough of a record for the court to review and be able to create some alternative that is fair," said Kathay Feng, the national redistricting director at the voting rights organization Common Cause. The court battle has gotten ugliest in Ohio, where voters will be casting ballots in congressional districts that the state Supreme Court says were unconstitutionally drawn. Feng pointed to an "escape hatch" the legislature created in the competing proposal it put forward for creating a commission, where "even if a partisan or racial gerrymander has been found, a court may not impose a remedy by itself." "It has to go back to the legislature to be drawn," Feng said. "And so that circular, multi-layered stages of Dante's Hell has been imposed on Ohio."

“Once the fuel has been added to the fire, it’s very hard to back away from it,” said Kathay Feng, the national redistricting director for the advocacy group Common Cause. “Now it’s not just the operatives in the back room, which is where it started. It’s not just technology. It’s not just legislators being shameless about drawing lines. It’s governors and state officials and sometimes even courts leaning in to affirm these egregious gerrymanders.”