Gerrymandering/Redistricting

“The governor pushed and pushed and pushed,” said attorney Greg Baker who represents Common Cause Florida, the Florida branch of the NAACP and Fair Districts who are now are suing to have the map thrown out.. “He pressed his argument by sound bite bullying.” Baker, who represents the three organizations along with 10 individual voters, told a three-judge panel that DeSantis’ goal was to dismantle the district then held by Democratic Rep. Al Lawson, who is Black, and disperse it among other conservative north Florida districts easily won by white Republicans. The 2022 election left north Florida without Black representation for the first time in 30 years, Baker said. The state’s population of more than 22 million is 17% Black.

White Republicans won all North Florida congressional districts in the November elections after the map was redrawn. Attorneys for plaintiffs such as the NAACP and Common Cause Florida argue in the federal lawsuit that the overhaul to Congressional District 5 involved "intentional discrimination" and violated the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment and 15th Amendment. The 14th Amendment ensures equal protection, while the 15th Amendment prohibits denying or abridging the right to vote based on race. The Legislature passed the plan after DeSantis vetoed a proposal that could have led to electing a Black candidate in District 5, the attorneys wrote in a pre-trial brief filed Tuesday. "Gov. DeSantis was viscerally opposed to any district in North Florida in which Black voters could elect a representative of their choice - no matter how such a district was configured," the brief said. "He vetoed the Legislature's plan, and pushed through his own, not in spite of his plan's adverse impact on Black voting power, but precisely because of it. That is unconstitutional." "The evidence will show Governor DeSantis went into the 2022 congressional redistricting with one overriding goal: eliminating (the previous configuration of) Florida's Fifth Congressional District, a district where Black voters could elect their candidate of choice," said the brief filed Tuesday by the plaintiffs' attorneys.

The higher vote requirement is a critical component of any redistricting change, said Jay Heck, director of Common Cause Wisconsin. The plan the Assembly is voting on was unveiled at a news conference Wednesday afternoon. There was no public hearing, and Democrats and advocates say they were not consulted in the drafting of the bill. “It’s not serious," Heck said. "This is an act of desperation to head off the Supreme Court from redrawing the maps. ... It just doesn’t pass the smell test on any level.”

“Going back to 2011, there is such a long laundry list of pretty amazing things that they’ve done,” says Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin. “And it’s almost like, what else could they do? And then they come up with something like this.” If the legislature rejects the maps drawn by the Legislative Reference Bureau, nonpartisan staff who work for the legislature, on two occasions, Republicans will have the power to draw their own partisan maps, which Heck says is “absolutely” Vos’ goal. Vos introduced the proposal Tuesday with no advance warning and the legislature plans to pass it on Thursday.  “The fact that Vos felt compelled to introduce this measure without consultation with any reform organizations like Common Cause Wisconsin and with no Democratic support and to immediately bring it to the floor of the Assembly without a public hearing or discussion is indicative of the disingenuous nature of this political stunt,” Heck wrote in email.

“The Ohio Redistricting Commission isn’t functional,” said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, a good government group, adding that bodes poorly for the creation of fair maps. “If you can’t hear one another, you’re going to have trouble hearing the community, and hearing the folks that come to testify,” she said.

What they're saying: Catherine Turcer, executive director of the government watchdog group Common Cause Ohio, says the reforms of 2015 and 2018 were not enough to keep partisan officials from being "drunk on power." "What we've learned is it's not enough to have good rules in the Ohio Constitution," she tells Axios. "We need independent mapmakers who aren't influenced by loyalty to party."