News Clips

“To not hear this case would be a bad outcome because we would end up with a ruling that only applies to Maryland,” said Damon Effingham, executive director of Common Cause Maryland. “It would still be incredibly difficult to get the reforms that we’re hoping for.”

"Because lawmakers stubbornly refuse to consider passing redistricting reform, we're left with no choice but to litigate," Common Cause NC Executive Director Bob Phillips said in a release announcing the lawsuit. "Gerrymandering is detrimental to democracy, denying voters a choice and a voice on Election Day."

"Gerrymandering is an abuse of power no matter who does it, and both Democrats and Republicans use it for their political gain," said Kathay Feng, national redistricting director for the Common Cause advocacy group.

"We see strong support for these initiatives from independents, Democrats and Republicans," said Karen Hobert Flynn, president of Common Cause. "The question is whether incumbent officials will wake up to understand that people really do want democracy and that power belongs to the people."

“In California, we had a system where politicians went behind closed doors and decided where the lines were drawn and ended up hurting communities — communities of color, women interested in running, people in the way of an incumbent,” said Kathay Feng, national redistricting director of Common Cause, noting the issue was long seen as “an insider game, that no one was paying attention to, and we were told that it’s so complicated and regular people can’t understand it. But that’s not true.”

“I think that there is a very strong reaction to people feeling like this process is closed, it’s secretive and it is intentionally so because there are partisan shenanigans going on where one party or a set of incumbents are trying to manipulate the lines,” said Kathay  Feng, national redistricting director of Common Cause.