Mississippi state legislators review an option for redrawing the state’s voting districts at the state Capitol in Jackson on March 29, 2022.
AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis
A ruling by the US Supreme Court to allow unlawful maps to be used in the midterm elections will affect who gets elected to the House of Representatives and may determine control of Congress.
Which branch has the power to rewrite congressional maps?
Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
Justices declined GOP requests to block court-approved congressional maps in North Carolina and Pennsylvania. But justices punted a bigger question over the role of courts until after the midterm elections.
Not every vote is counted equal.
Joshua Lott/AFP via Getty Images
Alabama will be allowed to keep a congressional map that critics say disadvantages Black voters. That does not bode well for 2022 midterms, argues a law scholar.
State Sen. Joseph Thomas, D-Yazoo City, holds a copy of the proposed congressional redistricting map during debate over redistricting at the Mississippi State Capitol in Jackson, Jan. 12, 2022.
AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis
The results of the latest round of redistricting have advanced the anti-democratic trend where elected leaders choose their voters, undermining representative government.
Representatives say the Pledge of Allegiance at the State Capitol in Austin. Texas is one of many states that redrew their political maps in 2021.
Tamir Kalifa via Getty Images
Cracking down on gerrymandering isn’t enough to make elections more competitive.
Students of School Section #13 with teacher, Verlyn Ladd, who taught at the school from 1939 to 1958. Class of 1951, Buxton, Raleigh Township, Ontario.
(Buxton National Historic Site & Museum)
An 1850 act permitted the creation of separate schools for Protestants, Catholics and for any five Black families. Some white people used the act to force Black students into separate institutions.
Drawing congressional district boundaries can be complicated.
AP Photo/Gerry Broome
The undermining of democracy across the Americas, especially in the U.S. and Peru, has been occurring via attempts to use laws solely for political gain.
Who will be represented in Congress?
iconeer/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images
To overhaul an election redistricting process tainted by gerrymandering, Michigan has adopted a governance mechanism prominent 2,500 years ago in ancient Athens, the birthplace of democracy.
A small sliver of a congressional district in Pennsylvania crossed four counties, on a map that was ruled to be a partisan gerrymandering plan.
AP Photo/Keith Srakocic
Robin E. Best, Binghamton University, State University of New York and Steve B. Lem, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania
When voters in November pick among the candidates for state legislatures, they are choosing the people who will make the new electoral maps for congressional elections.
Are you trapped in an echo chamber?
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Conflict made its way to the Supreme Court this past session with two cases – one about the census, the other about gerrymandering. A court scholar says the two cases are intimately connected.
The Supreme Court is empty days before the justices vote to on the U.S. gerrymandering case.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
The Supreme Court has issued what’s likely to be its final word on partisan gerrymandering, saying it’s a political issue, not a legal one. That means reform lies in the hands of voters.
People waited outside the Supreme Court in 2013 to listen to the Shelby County, Ala. v. Holder voting rights case.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
When no one in Mississippi wins a majority of votes in an election, the legislature chooses the winner. This has led to white men winning over and over.
Demonstrators protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court, in Washington, on March 26.
REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
The US public is more aware than ever of partisan gerrymandering, and they’re pushing local governments to make reforms.
Activists at the Supreme Court opposed to partisan gerrymandering hold up representations of congressional districts from North Carolina, left, and Maryland, right.
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
Manil Suri, University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Karen Saxe, Macalester College
Supreme Court justices have previously called statistical methods of measuring partisan gerrymandering ‘sociological gobbledygook’ and ‘a bunch of baloney.’
Idaho State Capitol in Boise, Idaho.
AP Photo/Kimberlee Kruesi, File
The majority of US state legislatures are controlled by Republicans because legislative districts are drawn to favor them. Voters are catching on, but change will be slow.