Media

“The court clearly sided with voters today by declaring that an unconstitutional, partisan gerrymander in Maryland squashed political participation and speech,” said Kathay Feng, the national redistricting director for Common Cause. “Gerrymandering is an abuse of power no matter who does it, and both Democrats and Republicans use it for their political gain.”

We call on all Americans to repudiate this political hate in each and every conversation with family, friend, and colleagues. We cannot ignore the racist and intolerant invective we see in politics, repeated by some news commentators, and flourishing online.  Our own president needs to repudiate this hate speech and own his own very significant contributions to setting the tone that makes people think it is okay to vilify and attack politicians, judges, reporters and others who they don’t agree with.

As Common Cause takes its quest to end partisan gerrymandering to the U.S. Supreme Court in Common Cause v. Rucho, it is also promoting a toolkit for courts and advocates to determine whether partisan gerrymandering has effectively taken away voters’ voices. A new and important tool, a “Swiss Army knife” paper written by Princeton University neuroscientist Samuel S. Wang and his team, pulls together several different legal and math approaches and explains how they all work together. Today he is named the winner of Common Cause’s third Partisan Gerrymandering Writing Competition.

The voters of Missouri prevailed today in their fight to reform the legislature, including the improving the redistricting process and limiting gifts from lobbyists. The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court and ruled that Amendment 1, the Clean Missouri-supported constitutional amendment to make government more responsive to the people, could appear on the November ballot. Common Cause filed an amicus brief in this case arguing that Amendment 1 contains commonsense and nonpartisan good government reforms that the people of Missouri should have the opportunity to vote on in November.