Redistricting

Redistricting Without Party Politics?!

Election Law Society · January 31, 2011 ·

Redistricting Without Party Politics?! Is that possible? A plan for redistricting that the Virginia Assembly will adopt as its own is the goal of the team from William & Mary School of Law. Along with teams from across the state that have entered the Virginia College & University Redistricting Competition, the WM School of Law Team is out to prove that it is possible to come up with a redistricting plan that is practical, objective, and fair. Although the competition was put together as an academic exercise, it has evolved into more with the Governor’s Bipartisan Commission on Redistricting taking notice and encouraging the exercise. While the William & Mary School of Law team is under no illusion that their map will be adopted wholesale by the VA Assembly, they are looking forward to the map being a source of comparison for the Assembly as it crafts official redistricting maps.

The competition is sponsored by the Wason Center for Public Policy and the Public Mapping Project. Teams will be drawing lines for the VA House of Delegates, the VA Senate, and for federal congressional House districts using Public Mapping software. The criteria for drawing the maps includes districts that are contiguous, fair in representation, equal in population, in compliance with the federal Voting Rights Act, keeping communities of interest together/respecting existing political subdivisions, compact, and electorally competitive. The judges for the competition will be Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution and Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute.

Members of the William & Mary Law School Team are: Brian Cannon, Alex Grout, John Holden, Meredith McCoy, Rebekah Miller, Nicholas Mueller, Pete Newman, Sam Robinson, and Brian Rothenberg.

Check back for more info on the team and their ongoing progress!

Barry was mentally unstable www.pro-essay-writer.com and began to drink heavily!

Weekly Wrap Up

Election Law Society · January 28, 2011 ·

Emanuel got the green light for candidacy: Rahm Emanuel can run for Chicago mayor, after a unanimous decision by the Illinois Supreme Court. The Court found that he meets the residency requirements because he paid taxes and maintained a residence he planned to use as his permanent residence–even though he rented it out–in Chicago while working in the White House.

Every vote counts in Ohio: A three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on January 27 that ballots improperly cast because of errors by poll workers must be counted in the judicial election in Hamilton County. Although the exact number of ballots that must now be counted is unknown, Democrats claim it could be in the hundreds. Republican John Williams currently leads by 23 votes.

Is there a fight brewing over Fair Districts in Florida?: In one of his first acts as governor, Rick Scott withdrew the request to the Justice Department to approve the redistricting amendments passed by voters in November. The amendments are also currently being challenged in court in a lawsuit filed by two U.S. Representatives from Florida.

over at the service

Let the Staff Handle it: Iowa’s Answer to Redistricting

Election Law Society · January 24, 2011 ·

In the wake of the 2010 Census, reapportionment and redistricting of seats of the US House of Representatives looms large on the political horizon. Those who have lost hope that redistricting can ever be anything but dysfunctional should spare some attention for Iowa during this ongoing process.

For those states unlucky enough to lose one or more of their seats, the unpleasantness is two-fold: reduced representation at the federal level accompanied by a contentious and highly partisan redistricting process. [Read more…] about Let the Staff Handle it: Iowa’s Answer to Redistricting

What Do You Mean, “One Person?”

Election Law Society · November 17, 2010 ·

For nearly half a century, American courts have looked to the “one person, one vote” standard as the guiding principle in reapportionment and redistricting cases. This doctrine, first laid forth in Reynolds v. Sims (1963), holds that “the constitutional test for the validity of districting schemes shall be one of population equality among the various districts.” Since that time the principle has become a central tenet in redistricting, and indeed as the country heads into the post-2010 round of redistricting, the courts’ understanding of one person, one vote remains largely unchanged. That is, unless one Dallas suburb can upset it. [Read more…] about What Do You Mean, “One Person?”

Yes/No, No/Yes: Two California Redistricting Bills Compete for Votes

Election Law Society · September 15, 2010 ·

Last Sunday, two competing editorials were published in the San Francisco Chronicle discussing two proposed redistricting bills in California, Proposition 20 and Proposition 27. Both propositions focus on changing the Congressional redistricting process. Proposition 20 would give the task to the Citizen Redistricting Commission, which already draws the lines for the legislative districts. Proposition 27 would have the Legislature do it, but impose public oversight and strict guidelines on the process. The editorials dealing with these propositions took opposite views: Daniel Lowenstein of UCLA supported Proposition 27, saying it would reduce the cost and create equal districts; Alice Huffman, president of the NAACP, argued that Proposition 20 would prevent districts from being drawn for the benefit of politicians. Both disagreed strongly with the claims in the other.

So who’s right and who’s wrong? As is usually the case, the answer is not black and white.