News Clips

If the Supreme Court does someday set limits on partisan gerrymandering, the details of the new standard will affect how quickly challengers can move to strike down a map. Kathay Feng, national redistricting director at Common Cause, said the court could require challengers to wait a few elections to show that one party had obtained a durable advantage. Alternatively, the court could require challengers to show only that the party in power intentionally drew a map to put the other party at a disadvantage. A more aggressive standard like that, Feng said, would allow lawsuits to move forward sooner.

“Today, the U.S. Supreme Court today did not to address the unconstitutionality of one of the most partisan gerrymanders of state legislative districts (2011) in American history, but we remain hopeful that standing can be addressed and we can win justice in the courts. We even more urgently renew our call on the Wisconsin Legislature to replace this broken system with a transparent, non-partisan process modeled after our neighbor, Iowa, in time for the 2021 redistricting cycle, if not before.” - Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin

Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, which helped lead the Issue 1 effort, said "even one more election using gerrymandered districts is too many." "This litigation may give Ohioans the fair districts they deserve in 2020 and may strengthen the protections of Issue 1 in the next redistricting cycle," she said.

“Ohioans never gave up on the fight to end to the manipulation of congressional districts for political advantage and today our efforts paid off,” said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, who led the coalition supporting the measure.

As Americans prepare for the 2020 census, there's a movement afoot that would negatively affect the count. The Trump administration wants to ask respondents about their citizenship or legal status on the census form, a query that in the context of today's supercharged immigration debates would lead millions of people – citizens and non-citizens – to ignore the form or return it blank.

Federal elections are the pillar of our national democracy, and the decennial census is the foundation for those elections and assuring that every person is counted accurately and has fair political representation. That makes the responsibility of the Census Bureau to carry out an accurate and fair census a critical charge. Everything from how we are represented in Congress to community resources for our schools, hospitals, and assistance to veterans depends on reliable and accurate census data.