Press Release: Voters Urge U.S. Supreme Court to Agree that North Carolina Congressional Map is an Unconstitutional Partisan Gerrymander

/in , , /by

WASHINGTON – Plaintiffs in North Carolina’s partisan gerrymandering challenge, League of Women Voters of North Carolina v. Rucho, filed a motion with the U.S. Supreme Court today asking the court to affirm the lower court’s ruling that found the entire state’s plan to be an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. In February, the Supreme Court denied expedited briefing in the case, but it still has the ability to affirm the district court’s decision and to order fair maps drawn in the state soon thereafter.

The Campaign Legal Center (CLC) the Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ), and University of Chicago Professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos represent plaintiffs in the case. They jointly filed the brief on behalf of their clients, the League of Women Voters of North Carolina and 12 individual North Carolina voters.

A PDF of the motion can be found at http://bit.ly/LWVAffirm

“The district court unanimously and correctly found that North Carolina lawmakers manipulated the state’s congressional voting maps to lock in their own political party’s power, with little regard for the will of voters,” said Paul Smith, vice president at CLC, who argued CLC’s landmark partisan gerrymandering case out of Wisconsin, Gill v. Whitford, before the Supreme Court on October 3. “North Carolina has one of the most severely gerrymandered maps in modern American history. North Carolina voters have endured three election cycles with a skewed congressional map. The Supreme Court must affirm the lower court’s ruling, because even a single election under an unconstitutional map is one too many.”

“The congressional maps drawn in North Carolina would be unconstitutional under virtually any meaningful legal standard the court adopts,” said Allison Riggs, senior voting rights attorney for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. “We are hopeful that the court will recognize the glaring unconstitutionality of the plan and affirm the lower court’s ruling.”

Evidence presented at trial in 2017 demonstrated that the Republican plan to use political data in drawing this map to gain partisan advantage worked exactly as expected. In the 2016 election, Republican congressional candidates in North Carolina won ten out of thirteen seats, even though the statewide vote was nearly tied and North Carolina is a purple state. An expert that examined the map determined that the North Carolina plan exhibited the largest partisan bias of any congressional map in the country.

This term, the Supreme Court will decide CLC’s case challenging Wisconsin’s state assembly map as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. CLC and co-counsel represent 11 Wisconsin voters in the landmark case, Gill v. Whitford. The federal district court in North Carolina applied the same tests for measuring partisan symmetry as were applied in the Wisconsin case, indicating that there is a manageable way to consistently measure what constitutes an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.

 

Read more about the case League of Women Voters of North Carolina v. Rucho.

SCSJ at the U.S. Supreme Court

/in , , /by

The Southern Coalition for Social Justice hit a milestone this week. Allison Riggs, our Senior Voting Rights Attorney, argued a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Abbott v. Perez is a redistricting case out of Texas where voters of color were either packed or cracked into districts to minimize their political power. It was wrong. It was intentional. And we are proud to represent the Texas NAACP in the case.

 

SCSJ signed onto to Abbott v. Perez (formerly Perez v. Perry) in 2011, when it became clear that the Texas legislature’s redistricting plan was going to disenfranchise communities of color.  At the Supreme Court, Allison Riggs argued two main points: that the Supreme Court did not yet have proper jurisdiction in the case, and jurisdiction issues aside, it’s clear that the district lines drawn in Texas intentionally discriminated against communities of color.

 

This moment is a milestone for SCSJ.  For over a decade now we have partnered with community groups to seek justice throughout the south.  And it’s now clear that we are capable of standing before the highest court in the land – with partners and justice on our side – demanding that we live up to our ideals of having equal justice under the law.

 

NC Policy Watch reporter Melissa Boughton profiles Allison’s argument and SCSJ’s rise in the voting rights world in her recent story “A familiar face in DC: rising SCSJ voting rights attorney argues first case at SCOTUS”.

 

To read more about the case, please visit https://www.southerncoalition.org/abbott-v-perez/

 

Also, here are a few news clips from this week’s hearing:

 

New York Times (link) – Allison Riggs quoted

Washington Post  (link) – Allison mentioned

SCOTUSblog (link) – Allison quoted

Houston Public Media (link) – Allison quoted

 

 

 

 

Press Release: Voters File Federal Court Challenge to Voter Intimidation Efforts in Virginia

/in , , , , /by

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 12, 2018

Contact:

Dustin Chicurel-Bayard, dustin@scsj.org, 919.323.4051

Mackenzie Long, mlong@wearerally.com, 916.524.3197

 

Voters File Federal Court Challenge to Voter Intimidation Efforts in Virginia

Voter intimidation violates Ku Klux Klan Act, created in 1871 to protect voters
from being harassed when attempting to register or vote

 

ALEXANDRIA, VA – Voters subjected to intimidation efforts and false accusations of illegal voting in Virginia filed a federal lawsuit today, citing violations of the Ku Klux Klan Act and the Voting Rights Act, as well as state defamation laws. The suit was filed in Virginia’s Eastern District federal court. Plaintiffs include the Richmond Council for the League of United Latin American Citizens, as well as four individual voters who were recklessly accused of committing election-related crimes in reports published by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF). The defendants in the case are PILF and J. Christian Adams, the organization’s President and General Counsel.

The Southern Coalition for Social Justice and Protect Democracy represent plaintiffs in the case, along with the law firm of Emery Celli Brinkerhoff and Abady LLP and pro bono attorneys.

“The law guarantees that all eligible Americans may participate in elections free from intimidation or libel,” said Allison Riggs, Senior Voting Rights Attorney at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. “It’s troubling that there’s a growing pattern of voter intimidation across the country that targets everyday, private Americans with tactics that bully them and discourage them from registering to vote and casting a ballot for the candidate of their choice.  Such bullying damages the foundation of our democracy and represents the kind of voter intimidation that civil rights laws are designed to eradicate.”

Plaintiffs’ claims relate to two reports released by PILF: Alien Invasion in Virginia and Alien Invasion II. The first report was published in September 2016 and accuses voters of committing multiple felonies, from illegally registering to vote, to casting an ineligible ballot. The follow-up report, accusing even more voters, was released in May 2017.

“Defendants were wildly reckless in the statements they made about our clients.  They should have known that the people they were accusing of felonies were, in fact, eligible voters,” said Andrew G. Celli, Jr. and Alanna Kaufman of the law firm of Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady LLP.  “Our clients have committed no crime.  Their names have been smeared and their personal contact information spread widely. This is a modern, covert, and insidious effort to intimidate voters.  It must be remedied.”

The lawsuit asserts that defendants’ conduct  “violates both the Voting Rights Act, see 52 U.S.C. § 10307, and the Ku Klux Klan Act, see 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3), because it intimidates constitutionally eligible voters, like Plaintiffs, into not exercising their right to vote.” (p. 5, LULAC of Richmond v. Public Interest Legal Foundation)

“Regardless of whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, the importance of protecting Americans’ right to vote free of intimidation should be something that all Americans can agree on,” said Cameron Kistler of Protect Democracy.  “Our democracy depends on it.”

The complaint in LULAC of Richmond v. Public Interest Legal Foundation can be found at  https://www.southerncoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/LULAC-of-Richmond-v.-PILF.pdf

 

###

 

The Southern Coalition for Social Justice is a non-partisan legal organization that partners with communities of color and economically disadvantaged communities in the south to defend and advance their political, social and economic rights.

 

Protect Democracy is a non-partisan organization dedicated to preventing our democracy from declining into a more authoritarian form of government.

 

Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady LLP is a litigation boutique that focuses on civil rights, commercial, criminal, and ethics matters.

The State of Discipline in NC Schools

/in , , /by

Highlights from The 2018 State of Discipline Report

The data analysis from the Youth Justice Project found that:

  • Although out-of-school suspension is down, students are still too often removed from class for disciplinary reasons.
  • Tens of thousands of young children were suspended last school year.
  • Black students were more likely to be suspended than white students.
  • There is not enough information about the impact of School Resource Officers.

While some individual schools and districts are taking steps to address the issues outlined in the report, the Youth Justice Project calls for immediate and bold action at the state level. The report outlines several policy recommendations that include:

  • banning out-of-school suspensions for early grades,
  • mandating data collection and reporting for school-based interactions with police, and;
  • prioritizing racially equitable discipline policies.

The full report can be found at southerncoalition.org/sodreport2018.

Interactive report below:

Voting Rights Advocates Seek New Districts in Wake County for the 2018 Election

/in , , , /by

RALEIGH, N.C. — The Southern Coalition for Social Justice filed a redistricting challenge in Wake County Superior Court today arguing that the 2017 changes to four Wake County State House Districts violate the state constitution’s prohibition against mid-decade redistricting; asking the court to prevent the illegally altered Wake County districts in the legislature’s 2017 plan from going into effect; and asking the court to ensure that any remedial plans apply the lines originally drawn for House Districts 36, 37, 40, and 41, contained in the 2011 adopted map, for the upcoming 2018 elections.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of North Carolina NAACP, the League of Women Voters of North Carolina, Democracy North Carolina, North Carolina A. Philip Randolph Institute, and four individual plaintiff-voters from Wake County.

The focal point of the lawsuit is the legislature’s altering of state House District lines in Wake County when it engaged in a court-ordered redistricting in 2017 to cure two racially gerrymandered districts in the county.

When lawmakers used this opportunity to change the lines for House Districts 36, 37, 40, and 41(none of which were named in the court order), they went beyond what the federal court directed and altered the lines of districts that did not need to be redrawn to remedy the racial gerrymandering. Doing so violated the mid-decade redistricting prohibition found in Article II, § 5 of the North Carolina Constitution. (See http://bit.ly/NCarolinaConstitution, p. 6).

The complaint asks that the four state House Districts in Wake County be returned to their 2011 boundaries in time for 2018 state legislative elections.

The lawsuit was filed nine days after a three-judge panel in the same court decreed that the legislature’s handling of Wake County’s districts should be addressed in a new lawsuit.

Allison Riggs, senior voting rights attorney for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice and lead attorney in the case, issued the following statement after the lawsuit was filed:

“Voters in North Carolina have a state constitutional right to have their legislative districts changed only once a decade. This is an important protection in state law–one that many states don’t have–and its clear purpose is to prevent the ills of gerrymandering and political gamesmanship present here. When tasked with fixing racially gerrymandered districts in 2017, the legislature made no secret of using politically-motivated and illegal changes throughout the county, violating the North Carolina Constitution in the process. Swapping one constitutional violation for another is not acceptable, and we expect the state courts to vigorously protect the state constitutional rights of our clients.”

Janet Hoy, co-President of the League of Women Voters of North Carolina, offered the following statement about the challenge:

“North Carolinians have not been able to vote in constitutional state legislative districts this decade. Lawmakers have dodged their obligations to enact fair districts time and time again. That will not deter us from continuing to push fair districts for voters that comply with the state and federal constitutions.”

Marian Lewin, President of the League of Women Voters of Wake County, issued the following statement after the lawsuit was filed:

“It’s a shame that lawsuits like this are necessary. We shouldn’t have to go to courts to have fair districts. But until lawmakers listen to the voters and pass redistricting plans that don’t discriminate against voters or violate the law, we are going to need strong women – like the individual plaintiffs from Wake County in this case – to continue to stand up and demand fair voting districts.”

A PDF of the lawsuit can be found at http://bit.ly/NCNAACPvLewisComplaint

A PDF of the Motion for Preliminary Injunction can be found at http://bit.ly/NCNAACPvLewisPI

Statement from the Southern Coalition for Social Justice Regarding the Dismissal of Charges for the Protesters Charged with Toppling Confederate Monument in Durham

/in , , /by
On February 20, 2018, Durham District Attorney Roger Echols announced that he was dismissing the charges against protesters charged with toppling the Confederate monument outside of the old Durham County Courthouse in August 2017.  The decision came the day after the first three protesters to stand trial had their cases dismissed or were acquitted.
Whitley Carpenter, part of the Criminal Justice litigation team for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, which helped represent defendants in the case, issued the following statement after the charges were dropped:
“The statue that was torn down was a symbol of white supremacy that has no place in front of the public buildings that represent our community.  We applaud the District Attorney for finally dropping the charges in this case.  It’s time for us to recognize that these symbols of hate create division within our communities.  We need to make monuments to the ill-conceived project of white supremacy a thing of the past.”
Ian Mance, Laura Holland, Angaza Laughinghouse, and Ivy Johnson are also attorneys on Southern Coalition for Social Justice’s criminal justice litigation team that represented defendants in this case.
Other attorneys on the case include Scott Holmes, Amelia O’Rourke-Owens, and Thomas Cadwallader.

Plaintiffs Quick to Seek Relief in State Court after U.S. Supreme Court Action

/in , , , /by

RALEIGH, N.C. – Plaintiffs in a state court redistricting challenge have asked a three-judge panel in Wake County Superior Court to order new districts into effect that comply with the North Carolina Constitution.  The motion comes less than 24 hours after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered that districts drawn by a Special Master that remedy racially gerrymanders be included in the state’s districting plan but temporarily blocked the Special Master’s recommended House districts in Wake and Mecklenburg Counties that were intended to resolve state constitutional violations.

 

In December, plaintiffs in Dickson v. Rucho asked the three-judge panel in Wake County Superior Court to retain jurisdiction in the case until it was clear that the remedy enacted at the federal level in Covington v. North Carolina also fixed any state constitutional violations.  The order by the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday leaves the door open for the state court to take up this matter.

 

The Southern Coalition for Social Justice represents the N.C. NAACP, the League of Women Voters of North Carolina, Democracy North Carolina, the N.C. A. Philip Randolph Institute, and more than 30 individual plaintiffs in Dickson v. Rucho.

 

Today’s filing can be found at http://bit.ly/DicksonEmRelief

 

 

Excerpts from today’s motion:

 

“The stay entered yesterday by the United States Supreme Court does not deprive this state court of the authority or duty to interpret the state constitution and to ensure that Joint Plaintiffs are afforded full constitutional relief.”  (p. 5)

 

 

“…this Court can and must rule on state constitutional issues.  This Court must ensure that the remedial plan does not embed other violations of the state constitution in the legislature’s attempted remedy of federal constitutional violations.  This Court is the only court that can now provide for elections under constitutional districts for the first time this decade.”  (p. 7)

 

 

“It is not sufficient that the General Assembly simply enact new districts if these new districts also do not correct the constitutional flaws and comply with state and federal law.  This Court can and must intervene if deficiencies are identified and left unaddressed. The North Carolina Supreme Court upheld this exact kind of intervention in Stephenson v. Bartlett…” (p. 8)

 

 

“Thus, because the Special Master’s and Covington plaintiffs’ proposed maps in these counties remedy the racial gerrymandering violation without affecting House Districts 36, 37, 40, 41 and 105, it is clear that the enacted Wake and Mecklenburg County House district configurations violate the state constitutional prohibition on mid-decade redistricting and cannot be enacted or approved by this Court.”  (p. 13)

 

 

“For all the foregoing reasons, Joint Plaintiffs respectfully request that this Court:

 

  1. Issue a ruling that these consolidated cases are not moot and that judgment is entered in favor of Joint Plaintiffs;
  2. Declare that the 2017 Enacted House Districts 36, 37, 40, 41, and 105 violate the state constitutional prohibition on mid-decade redistricting;
  3. Enjoin Defendants from conducting elections under the 2017 enacted House plan’s configurations of the Wake and Mecklenburg County districts;
  4. Order that the configurations of Wake and Mecklenburg County House districts designed by the Special Master in Covington, which do not violate the state constitutional prohibition on mid-decade redistricting, be ordered into effect for the 2018 election cycle; and
  5. Order that any citizen residing in a House district modified by the Court’s order as of the closing day of the filing period for the 2018 election be qualified to serve as a Representative if elected to that office, notwithstanding the requirements of Section 7 of Article II of the North Carolina Constitution.”  (p. 14-15)

U.S. Supreme Court Orders into Effect Fixes for Racially Gerrymandered Districts for 2018 Election

/in , , , /by
Puts hold on some of the Special Master’s districts related to state constitutional violations

WASHINGTON, D.C. – This evening the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block a district court’s order that remedied racially gerrymandered districts that were first enacted in the state’s 2011 redistricting plan and would have been perpetuated by the legislature’s 2017 plan. The Supreme Court did stay revisions to a small number of districts that violate the state constitution, however.

The districts redrawn by the Special Master to correct racial gerrymandering concerns will go into effect this election cycle. The state court will likely determine the future of the districts in Wake and Mecklenburg Counties, which were ordered redrawn to comply with the state’s prohibition on mid-decade redistricting.

Allison Riggs, senior voting rights attorney for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice who represents plaintiffs in the case, issued the following statement after the decision was announced:

“Finally, after years of litigation, North Carolinians will be able to elect their state legislators from districts that do not discriminate against voters based on their race. This decision represents a major victory for all North Carolinians who value fair elections and democratic principles.”

“To date, the legislature has done all that it can to obstruct, delay and undermine this order, which wastes time and taxpayer money. But now we’ll finally have districts that do not segregate voters on the basis of race. And despite this long and arduous journey, there are courageous people, like the plaintiffs in this case, who have not hesitated to stand up against every effort to abuse our democracy and unlawfully divide voters based on race. The Southern Coalition for Social Justice is very proud and honored to represent them.”

“We are confident that the legislature’s gross abuse of its power will ultimately either be shot down on full appeal or addressed by the state court. We look forward to presenting our case to the U.S. Supreme Court on those merits to make sure that the final redistricting plan fully complies with North Carolina’s constitution.”

The Southern Coalition for Social Justice also represents plaintiffs in a state redistricting challenge, Dickson v. Rucho, which is currently before the Wake County Superior Court. That court could now take up the question of whether districts in Wake and Mecklenburg County need to be altered in order to avoid violating the state constitution.

The Southern Coalition for Social Justice, along with the Poyner Spruill law firm, represents the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

Background about this case:

On June 5, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court summarily affirmed a lower court’s decision in Covington v. North Carolina that 28 of North Carolina’s state legislative districts are racial gerrymanders. The decision was issued “per curiam,” meaning by a unanimous decision of the Court. The ruling came two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court found two of the state’s congressional districts were also racial gerrymanders.

On July 31, 2017, North Carolina’s Middle District Court ordered the North Carolina General Assembly to redraw legislative maps by September 1, 2017, in order to remedy the unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. The legislature adopted new maps on August 30, 2017.

Plaintiffs filed objections to the newly drawn district plans and a hearing was held in front of a three-judge panel in the Middle District of North Carolina on October 12, 2017.

On October 26, 2017, the federal panel announced its intention to appoint Dr. Nathaniel Persily to the position of “Special Master” to review the newly adopted redistricting plan and make recommendations to ensure compliance with state and federal law in a few areas of the map where the Court believed the remedial plan was inadequate or otherwise illegal. Dr. Persily’s appointment became official on November 1, 2017.

Dr. Persily issued draft recommended changes to the state’s redistricting plan on November 13, 2017, and solicited feedback from the plaintiffs and defendants. Both submitted comments.

Meeting the deadline set by the three-judge panel, Dr. Persily submitted his final set of recommendations to the district court on December 1, 2017.

The three-judge panel heard arguments from the plaintiffs and defendants regarding the Special Master’s plan on January 5, 2018.

On January 19, 2018, the three-judge panel ordered that the Special Master’s recommendations be incorporated into the state’s state legislative redistricting plan.

###

Court Orders Special Master’s Recommended Districts Incorporated into State Legislative Redistricting Plan to Correct Constitutional Flaws

/in , , , /by

Court-ordered maps are now law

GREENSBORO, N.C. – A panel of three federal court judges has issued a unanimous order that incorporates the recommendations of the court-appointed Special Master, Dr. Nathan Persily, into North Carolina’s state legislative districts.  The Dr. Persily was asked to alter nine state legislative districts after the Court identified that the 2017 legislatively-enacted plans that were supposed to remedy the racial gerrymandering identified in the 2011 plans failed to adequately remedy the constitutional flaws or otherwise violated state law.  The districts as ordered by the court are now the official state legislative districts of the state.

“We appreciate the input and guidance of the Special Master and the Court to fully eliminate the unconstitutional use of race to segregate voters in North Carolina state legislative districts,” said Allison Riggs, senior voting rights attorney at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. “North Carolinians across this state fought for fair districts. We hope that legislators respect the reasoned opinion of this court that this kind of race discrimination has no place in our democracy.”

This same three-judge panel found in 2016 that twenty-eight state legislative districts to be unconstitutional racial gerrymanders.

The Southern Coalition for Social Justice, along with the Poyner Spruill law firm, represents the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

A copy of the court order can be found at http://bit.ly/CovingtonOrder

Background about this case:

On June 5, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court summarily affirmed a lower court’s decision in Covington v. North Carolina that 28 of North Carolina’s state legislative districts are racial gerrymanders.  The decision was issued “per curiam,” meaning by a unanimous decision of the Court. The ruling came two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court found two of the state’s congressional districts were also racial gerrymanders.

On July 31, 2017, The federal court for North Carolina’s Middle District ordered the General Assembly to redraw legislative maps by September 1, 2017, in order to remedy the unconstitutional racial gerrymanders.  The legislature adopted new maps on August 30, 2017.

Plaintiffs filed objections to the second enacted district plans and a hearing was held before the panel of three judges on October 12, 2017.

On October 26, 2017, the Court announced its intention to appoint Dr. Nathaniel Persily to the position of “Special Master” to review the newly adopted redistricting plan and recommend adjustments to ensure the map’s compliance with state and federal law.  Dr. Persily’s appointment became official on November 1, 2017.

Dr. Persily issued a draft recommending changes to the state’s redistricting plan on November 13, 2017, and he solicited feedback from the plaintiffs and defendants.  Both parties submitted comments.

Meeting the deadline set by the three-judge panel, Dr. Persily submitted his final set of recommendations to North Carolina’s Middle District Court on December 1, 2017.

The three-judge panel heard arguments from the plaintiffs and defendants regarding the Special Master’s plan on January 5, 2018.

###

Supreme Court Grants North Carolina’s Application to Delay Redrawing of Electoral Maps, Putting Fair Elections in North Carolina in Jeopardy For 2018 Election

/in , , , /by

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Supreme Court said North Carolina does not have to redraw its congressional voting maps by January 29, as a federal district court ordered on January 9 when it struck down the 2016 map as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.

Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and the Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ) represent the League of Women Voters of North Carolina, in this legal challenge to state’s 2016 maps. North Carolina’s maps have been in dispute since 2012, and the Supreme Court invalidated the state’s 2012 and 2014 maps as a racial gerrymander. In 2016, North Carolina voters went to the polls with the current map, which the district court has now also ruled unconstitutional.

“North Carolina voters deserve to have a fair map before the 2018 election, or they risk a fourth consecutive election under an unconstitutional map that does not reflect their preferences,” said Ruth Greenwood, senior legal counsel, voting rights and redistricting at CLC. “A single election under an unconstitutional map is one too many; four are intolerable. For that reason, the Supreme Court must move quickly to hear this case this term.”

“Voters and even most elected officials agree that partisan gerrymandering is violating the constitutional rights of Americans all over the country,” said Allison Riggs, senior voting rights attorney for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice.  “While we are disappointed that the stay was granted, North Carolinians deserve to participate in fair elections in 2018.  We are optimistic that the U.S. Supreme Court will, before the end of this term in June, recognize the harm to our democracy created by partisan gerrymandering and find such egregious efforts to diminish voters’ power unconstitutional. We still believe the day is coming soon for the General Assembly to be held to account for this madness.  The law and the facts of this case make that clear.”

The Supreme Court is currently considering a case challenging Wisconsin’s state assembly maps as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. CLC and co-counsel represent 11 Democratic voters in the state in the landmark case, Gill v. Whitford. The federal district court in North Carolina applied the same tests for measuring partisan symmetry as applied in the Wisconsin case, indicating that there is in a fact a way to consistently measure what constitutes an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. CLC has combined forces with other groups and legal teams as these cases advance together through the courts.

“It’s clear that partisan gerrymandering continues to worsen decade by decade, and the result is voters are becoming voiceless in the political process. That is not democracy,” said Paul Smith, vice president of litigation and strategy at CLC, who argued Whitford before the Supreme Court in October. “Lawmakers will most likely never reform the system so long as they can get away with drawing maps that keep them in power. The Supreme Court is our last resort and has the opportunity this term to provide guidance to federal courts and state legislators to understand when a map crosses the line.”

Read more about the case League of Women Voters of North Carolina v. Rucho.

###