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Common Cause, joined by the League of Women Voters of North Carolina, filed a brief in Common Cause v. Rucho today concluding that a new congressional map in North Carolina should be implemented after the 2018 elections. With 67 days to go before the 2018 general election and a primary already conducted, Common Cause argued that new districts would generate election administration challenges that would cause confusion and lower voter turnout. The trial court ruled on Monday that North Carolina’s congressional map is an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander and is determining the appropriate remedy. The North Carolina General Assembly is likely to appeal the court’s ruling striking down the map directly to the U.S. Supreme Court, which could hear the case in the next term.

A three-judge federal district court panel in North Carolina again ruled in Common Cause v. Rucho that the North Carolina General Assembly violated the U.S. Constitution in 2016 when legislators manipulated congressional districts for partisan advantage. The panel reached the same conclusion in January, but the Supreme Court of the United States vacated and remanded the decision this June following its decision in Gill v. Whitford. The Justices asked the trial court panel to reexamine whether plaintiffs had standing to sue. The panel confirmed standing and the original finding of constitutional violations in today’s decision. The North Carolina General Assembly is likely to appeal the decision. Appeals of three-judge panel redistricting decisions go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court, so the case could be heard there in the next year.

Common Cause joined more than 250,000 individuals and organizations to urge the Commerce Department to remove the citizenship question from the 2020 Census, citing the threat to census accuracy in all communities that will undermine the fair allocation of political representation, public resources, and private investment for the next decade.

The Michigan Supreme Court voted 4-3 to reject a lawsuit by well-funded special interests to keep the Voters Not Politicians ballot initiative off the November ballot. The initiative would end political gerrymandering in Michigan by stripping the power to draw districts from state legislators and creating an independent citizen redistricting commission to draw U.S. House and state legislative districts after each decennial census.

Briefs filed today in Common Cause v. Rucho in the Middle-District of Central North Carolina.

Today, Common Cause issued a new report examining how corrections industry influence, felony disenfranchisement and prison gerrymandering fuel mass incarceration and undermine democracy. Democracy Behind Bars looks at our broken criminal justice system and how it is manipulated for the benefit and profit of the prison industry. The report goes on to examine the work going on in the states to restore voting rights to citizens who have served their time and to curb mass criminalization and incarceration.