Gerrymandering/Redistricting

As 2018 congressional races heat up, Common Cause is once again tracking the positions of every Member of Congress on issues vital to the health of our democracy. Members of the House and Senate have received letters asking them to co-sponsor and support more than a dozen democracy reform bills and informing them that their co-sponsorship record will be published to our 1.1 million members during the lead-up to Election Day in Common Cause’s “Democracy Scorecard.”

Pennsylvanians should be choosing their elected representatives, not the other way around. The courts made that abundantly clear when they threw out the hideously biased map drawn by the legislature. But yesterday Pennsylvania House State Government Chair Daryl Metcalfe revealed that he missed the message and that he and, certain lawmakers remain unwilling to show due deference to the citizens, the constitution or the welfare of our state.

The fight for redistricting reform is progressing in the courts, at the grassroots, and in the halls of government across America.

Today, Common Cause and the Voting Rights Institute filed an amici brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in Abbott v. Perez, in support of a challenge to Texas legislative districts twice found by lower courts to be discriminatory racial gerrymanders perpetrated by the state Legislature. The maps drawn after the 2010 Census, were initially found to violate the Voting Rights Act by a U.S. District Court in 2011 but were reinstituted by the Legislature in 2013 without change.

Common Cause President Karen Hobert Flynn appeared today on CounterSpin, a daily podcast hosted by Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), to discuss the controversy over a proposed citizenship question on the 2020 Census