News & Blog

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled the state’s congressional maps violate the Pennsylvania Constitution. The Court ruled the districts are an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander and blocked the use of the current districts for the primaries slated for May.  In doing so, the Court ordered an immediate redrawing of the districts by the legislature or the Court […]

On January 9, 2018, a three-judge panel threw out the North Carolina Congressional redistricting map.  The panel held the plan was a partisan gerrymander that violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and the First Amendment.  The day after the North Carolina decision, a three-judge panel upheld the Pennsylvania congressional map as constitutional. As discussed […]

On January 10, the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments about the legality of Ohio’s efforts to maintain accurate voter-registration lists.  In Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute, the 6th Circuit held Ohio’s process to remove voters from the list is illegal. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and the Help America Vote Act of […]

2018 should be a huge year for redistricting cases. Last fall, the U.S. Supreme Court held oral argument on the Wisconsin partisan gerrymandering case of Gill v. Whitford. Then, in early December, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Benisek v. Lamone, a partisan gerrymandering challenge to the Maryland redistricting plan for its Congressional districts. Why the Supreme Court agreed to hear the Maryland case remains unclear.  However, […]

On December 12, Democrat nominee Doug Jones defeated Republican nominee Roy Moore in Alabama’s special election for United States Senate. This election was a hard-fought race with President Donald Trump supporting a losing candidate in the Republican primary and then the controversial Roy Moore. Jones’s margin of victory state-wide was approximately 1.5 percentage points. Interestingly, […]