"I know a lot of people in the states are also eager to get started. There has been a lot of frustration," said Adam Kincaid, executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust. "They are looking at the dates of the primaries and other things and wondering if they are going to meet their deadlines, if they are going to be able to do things on time."
Some states with early primaries even face the prospect of having to reorganize their entire election calendar, even pushing back long-standing primary dates, due to the delay.
Top data released by the Census Bureau in April answered the biggest question about redistricting: Which states are winning and losing seats in Congress? This new trove of data will help shape the contours of those districts, showing which of the existing seats are currently overcrowded or underpopulated and where new districts could be drawn.
The dataset will also give an indication of whether the census underestimated people of color in certain regions, and will show whether individual states need to add additional Black and Latino opportunity districts, as required by the Voting Rights Act. That officially sets the stage for a wave of lawsuits expected from both sides as redistricting proceeds.
The process is also at the center of the battle for control of Congress. The redistricting decisions made in the coming months will be perhaps the single most important determining factor in how Democrats can hold onto their slim majority in the House.
Crazy race to redistribute
Some states are expected to act quickly when considering new maps, including Colorado, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Iowa. Other states with early deadlines: Oregon, North Carolina, California, and Virginia.
When the data drops on Thursday afternoon, it will come in what is called a "legacy format," meaning redistricting agencies will have to download large files and convert them so they can be easily read by mapping software. That could take days or weeks.
"It's like Ikea furniture instead of Pottery Barn," said Kelly Ward Burton, chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. โWhen you shop at Pottery Barn, everything comes assembled. It's like, 'Here's your desk.' But when you get it from Ikea, it's like, 'Build it yourself.
In Colorado, the independent state commission already published a draft map in late June using non-decennial count data. Now it will update that map, which created a new district north of Denver, and commissioners will review the new plans on September 6.
"We needed data to create preliminary plans to have something to talk about when we hit the road," Jessika Shipley, director of personnel for the state independent commission, said of the plans. But, with the census data in hand, those lines on the map can and probably will change. Commissioners also have to answer philosophical questions that will greatly influence the final look of the map.
"They have a choice, say what competitiveness should mean," Shipley said. โWhat communities of interest should take precedence over others? These types of decisions, essentially, are those on which they can make value judgments and on which they should make value judgments. "
Some states are not limited by early deadlines for submitting new maps, but are instead staring at anticipated elementary dates and subsequently early submission deadlines. Those could also be carried over as states consider new maps.
Texas, which has a mid-December 2021 deadline for candidates to run for the March 1, 2022 primaries, is one of those states. But those dates could soon be on the move: When Republican Gov. Greg Abbott called a special second state legislative session earlier this month, he directed lawmakers to consider a bill โthat modifies filing periods and related election dates. , including any runoff, for primary elections held in Texas in 2022. "
(That special session is currently on hold because Democrats have continued their strike to protest Republican-led legislation that would add new barriers to voting.)
Illinois, another state that normally has early primaries, has already moved its primaries from mid-March to late June due to delays in redistricting.
Who were counted and how are they represented?
Democrats will pore over the data to examine whether they can successfully push through new majority and minority districts, especially in the southern states. Possible candidates for additional opportunity districts in the south include Louisiana, Alabama, and Georgia.
Any additional seats protected by the Voting Rights Act in those states would help increase the Democrats' footprint in the South. The first step for Democratic groups is a lobbying campaign to urge state legislatures to voluntarily create new districts. If that fails, the NDRC plans to present the case in court.
And the defenders are also looking outside the South. Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, pointed to a wide range of states, including Texas, Colorado and California, as potential states where new Latino-dominated districts could be drawn.
Thursday's statement will also allow advocates to see how Americans were accounted for and, more importantly, whether any population was overlooked or "underestimated."
"Where do we know people are, but were they just not counted due to unusual circumstances?" said Kathay Feng, national redistricting director for the Common Cause governance group. He noted that in addition to the major problems caused by the pandemic, this was the first time the Census Bureau pressured people to respond online, a major change for the agency.
โIt is like the Hubble telescope. It's the best we have, but we know it has a scratch, "he said. aggregate. "Can we find out exactly where the distortion is, caused by that scratch on the lens?"
Since the release of the distribution data in April, Latino politicians and advocates I have constantly worried that their communities were undervalued, potentially diminishing the political representation of a rapidly growing demographic in the U.S. But if their fears are confirmed, activists say there is little that could be done to fix it, especially for the redistricting in Congress.
"It's really more about how to prevent it next time," Saenz said.
A changing legal landscape
The legal battles during this redistricting cycle will look significantly different compared to the last decade. Crucially, the 2019 Supreme Court decision The fact that federal courts have no role in deciding claims of partisan manipulation ensures that state courts take center stage in much of the trials to come.
Since liberal judges in general are more likely to crack down on partisan gerrymandering, the partisan slant of the judiciary in individual states will be paramount. The mid-decade redistricting decisions of the North Carolina and Pennsylvania courts suggest those justices are more open to siding with Democrats who seek to prevent Republicans from drawing maps that are disproportionately in their favor.
But in 2020, Cheri Beasley, the Democratic Chief Justice of the North Carolina State Supreme Court narrowly missed re-election to Republican Paul Newby. The Chief Justice can play an important role in redistricting.
Meanwhile, the Florida State Supreme Court has taken a sharp turn to the right thanks to a slew of people appointed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Although Florida voters amended the state constitution to prohibit state lawmakers from considering politics in redistricting, the change in the judiciary has worried Democrats that it may not be able to stop Republican attempts to dismantle new Democratic districts in Orlando. and Saint Petersburg. Those seats were drawn in the middle of the last decade, when a less conservative state Supreme Court toppled the initial map of the Republican Party.
Democrats have also been nervous about what they describe as a pro-GOP high court in Virginia., that it will enter the state redistricting process if there is a deadlock on the part of the state commission, which is drawing the maps for the first time.
The compressed redistricting schedule also means that legal battles over district lines may not be resolved in time for the midterm elections. "Depending on where we think litigation is necessary, we may have to make some selection decisions and pursue some cases after the 2022 elections," Saenz said, noting that cases based on the Voting Rights Law they would still go to federal court. "Even though that means the elections will have been conducted using faulty lines."
But given the high-profile nature of redistricting and the importance of what lines on the map actually lead toward midterm elections, strategists are hopeful that the courts will prioritize and simplify those cases.
"When a judge wants to act fast, he can do it," Ward Burton said. "And the judges during redistricting, mostly on the net, want to land the plane."
