I got to wondering how many states, like Alaska, still don't have redistricting plans. That wondering got me to redistrictingonline.org. They don't exactly say, but I thought they might know and emailed their comment line and got a quick email back.
"After Maine approved its legislative districts recently, only Alaska, Texas and Kentucky have redistricting business to finish. You can check Prof. Justin Levitt's site http://redistricting.lls.edu for detailed info on all the states."
Levitt's site has a map that shows the status of litigation in all the states. It lists 15 states still in court. That's much more than the "Alaska, Texas, and Kentucky" answer I got above, but it doesn't appear to have been kept current. (The latest Alaska update was last November.) Plus not all the litigation is about state redistricting plans.
However, he did Tweet a few days ago:
ME gov signs state#redistricting map. Would've been last in country, if not for AK, KY, TX redo. redistricting.lls.edu/index-state.php
.Kentucky's legislature has been sued for not finishing and if they don't move on it a three judge panel may be appointed to finish it up.
On June 20, Kentucky's governor called a special session for five days beginning August 20 to get redistricting finished.
On June 20, Kentucky's governor called a special session for five days beginning August 20 to get redistricting finished.
Texas might be close to completion. From a Texas Redistricting And Election Law blog:
The vote on the redistricting bills has been added formally to the Texas House’s calendar for Thursday morning.
The House will be voting on the Senate version of the three map bills (SB 2, SB 3, and SB 4).
Assuming there are no amendments - and no successful points of order - the bills then could go straight to Gov. Perry’s desk for signature.
Thursday morning could be big in another way as well. An hour before the House meets, the Supreme Court will be releasing more opinions. Those could include a decision in Shelby Co. Jun 18, 2013 5:40 pm
The Texas situation is evolving quickly. Here's the picture from Saturday June 22.
Assuming no changes by the Senate (and none are expected), the version of the state house map that will go to Gov. Perry’s desk is Plan H358.
The changes made by the House on the floor were minor, but, in any event, here are the updated demographic stats for the map.
Plan H358 - CVAP
Plan H358 - Spanish surname 2012 voter turnout
Meanwhile, compared to Wisconsin, Alaska looks really good. [UPDATE Nov 1, 2013: There was a bad link for Wisconsin so I've put a more current link in.]
I don't know how long people have, in other states, to challenge the new plans in court. In Alaska it's 30 days.
Meanwhile, today's Supreme Court decisions did not include Shelby County (the voting rights case) nor the same-sex marriage cases, but SCOTUS Blog predicts more decisions tomorrow.
So now what happens with Shelby decided?
ReplyDeleteHere's my first stab at that. Though I've already been anticipating this in some previous posts on Shelby - June 10 and June 17.
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