LITTLE ROCK — The once-a-decade process of redrawing congressional districts is moving from the smoke-filled back room to the courtroom. Lawsuits related to redistricting have been filed in more than half the states, asking judges to decide issues that include whether the new maps take partisan gerrymandering too far or discriminate against voters who are members of minority groups.
In some states, courts are being asked to draw the new maps themselves. Courts have begun the process in Nevada, where the Republican governor, Brian Sandoval, vetoed maps drawn by the Democratic-controlled Legislature, and in Minnesota, where the Democratic governor, Mark Dayton, vetoed maps drawn by the Republican-controlled Legislature.Courts are also taking the lead in Colorado and New Mexico, where legislatures were unable to reach agreements on what the new maps should look like.
States that have drawn new districts are already facing a flurry of legal challenges, giving the courts, once again, a major role in drawing districts that could help determine the balance of power in Congress for the next decade.
The maps that many states have drawn so far are expected to help Republicans maintain the gains they made in the 2010 elections, largely by allowing them to tweak the boundaries to make politically mixed districts lean more toward Republicans.
Lawsuits related to the redistricting process have been filed in 28 states so far, said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School who studies redistricting and whose website tracks the cases.
“The sheer volume of litigation is pretty amazing,” said Levitt, adding that with cases resolved in six states, active cases remain in 22 states, dealing with congressional redistricting in 16 and with the districts of state lawmakers and other districts in the rest. “Every 10 years, redistricting litigation joins death and taxes as a virtual certainty.”
In a new development this year, Texas, one of several states with a history of discrimination that must get approval for its new districts under the Voting Rights Act, chose to go straight to federal court instead of simply asking the Justice Department to sign off on its new maps, as has been done in the past.
This is the first time since the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965 that a Democratic administration is in the White House at the time of redistricting.
Texas gained four seats in Congress because of a population boom fueled largely by the growing number of Hispanic residents, but the new map passed by Republican lawmakers and signed into law this summer by Gov. Rick Perry is unlikely to empower minority-group voters in more than one of the new districts, opponents have charged in court.
Republicans are largely driving the redistricting process this year, since their sweeping gains last November in state legislatures and governors’ mansions across the country gave them the power to unilaterally draw four times as many congressional districts as the Democrats can.
In many states, the Republicans are using that power to help them hold on to the dozens of seats they picked up from the Democrats in last year’s elections, often by tweaking their contours to add more Republican voters to those districts.
In Rust Belt states that are losing seats because their population growth lagged the rest of the nation’s, a game of political musical chairs is being played, in which incumbents try to make sure they still have a seat to run for when the redistricting music stops. In states gaining seats, mainly in the Sun Belt, the parties in power try to solidify their positions.
Members of Congress scrutinize every block that is drawn in or out of their districts, as shown in a series of e-mails between Texas politicians and redistricting officials that were released as part of a lawsuit.
Rep. Kenny Marchant, a Republican, wrote asking that his district be redrawn to include a school where his “grand babies go.” Republican officials wrote that Rep. Lamar Smith wanted his district redrawn to include the San Antonio Country Club.
Many of the e-mails show that Republicans were trying to gauge what percentage of the voters in the new districts voted for Sen. John McCain in the 2008 presidential election, to measure how strongly Republican they are.
The power of creative cartography is clear in two states: Illinois and North Carolina. In Illinois, which is losing a seat and where Democrats controlled the redistricting process, the new map is likely to favor 11 Democrats and seven Republicans, according to a forecast by the Cook Political Report - a reversal from the current delegation, which has 11 Republicans and eight Democrats.
In North Carolina, where Republicans won control of the Legislature, and thus the redistricting process, for the first time since Reconstruction, the new map will probably help elect nine to 10 Republicans, the forecast found - a reversal for a delegation that now has seven Democrats and six Republicans.
The state many people are watching this year is California, where, thanks to a voter-approved initiative, the district lines were drawn by an independent commission. While lines were often drawn to protect incumbents in both parties - leading to odd districts that some people joked were contiguous only at low tide - the new lines are expected to be much more competitive, though Democrats are seen as likely to gain a couple of seats.
The challenge the new maps pose for some incumbents has drawn criticism from officials in both parties. A lawsuit filed by Republicans charges that the maps violate the Voting Rights Act by eliminating some majority black districts in south Los Angeles.
Kathay Feng, the executive director of California Common Cause, who helped lead the fight for the independent commission, said the lawsuit was a cynical attempt to get a more favorable map.
“This is night and day from what we had before, which was a dog-and-pony show where the Legislature pretended to have negotiations,” Feng said. “What they really did was to entrench themselves.”
Front Section, Pages 5 on 10/23/2011