Gerrymandering/Redistricting

“This corrupt, undemocratic process has resulted in rigged maps that help politicians and their friends get re-elected at the expense of Ohio families and communities,” said Catherine Turcer, Executive Director of Common Cause Ohio, speaking on behalf of Fair Districts. “We are working together on an amendment to ban politicians from map drawing so that Ohio voters get the impartial districts they fundamentally deserve, and lawmakers will be responsive to the people rather than mega-donors and lobbyists.”

Kathay Feng, Common Cause vice president for programs who was on hand for the trial, contended that Kelly’s testimony showed that the DeSantis administration was struggling to explain their actions. “There’s a lot of twisting and turning, there’s a lot of fabrication, there’s a lot of denial of history,” Feng said.

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.