This story describes the hearing held on January 31 in Washington, D.C., in the case over whether the Texas legislature’s redistricting plan for U.S. House and state legislature violate the Voting Rights Act.
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According to this story, a state court in Kentucky has postponed the filing deadline for legislative candidates running in major party primaries, for a week. This is because the district boundaries are under court challenge. The article also says that lawsuits over districting are occurring currently in 25 states.
On January 31, the Eleventh Circuit upheld Florida’s new initiative that says when U.S. House districts are drawn, the legislature must not favor or disfavor any political party or any incumbent. Here is the 32-page decision, Brown v Florida House of Representatives, 11-14554.
The Florida initiative had been challenged by Democratic U.S. House member Corrine Brown, and Republican U.S. House member Mario Diaz-Balart. The U.S. District Court had also upheld the initiative. The two members of Congress had argued that Article One of the U.S. Constitution requires that only legislatures pass laws concerning congressional elections. But the Eleventh Circuit said that “legislature” within Article One includes the initiative process, because Florida’s constitution itself contemplates that the voters exercise legislative powers when they use the initiative. In a sense, the voters become the legislature. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link. UPDATE: see this news story about the decision.
Brad Blog has this story, which says Virginia law enforcement officials are looking into the possibility that a petitioner for Newt Gingrich may have forged names on petitions. It seems somewhat likely that no such investigation would now be occurring if Gingrich himself had not told an Iowa voter in public that “one guy” who worked on his petition submitted 1,500 fraudulent signatures. Thanks to IndependentPoliticalReport for the link.
The Brad Blog story also talks about whether Mitt Romney was improperly registered to vote in Massachusetts in January 2010, when he voted in the special U.S. Senate election.
On January 30, the Illinois League of Women Voters asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear League of Women Voters of Illinois v Quinn. The issue is whether partisan gerrymandering violates the free speech portion of the First Amendment. Here is the League’s filing with the U.S. Supreme Court.
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to rule that partisan gerrymandering violates the Equal Protection part of the Fourteenth amendment, but this is the first case to argue that putting voters in a particular district based on their party membership violates the First Amendment. The League says that putting voters into certain districts based on their party membership makes it less likely that voters will hear certain kinds of speech. The First Amendment protects the ability to hear speech as well as the ability to speak.
The case doesn’t have a docket number in the U.S. Supreme Court yet. A 3-judge U.S. District Court in Illinois had rejected the case last year. The League had then asked for reconsideration on November 10, 2011, but the 3-judge court rejected that only six days later. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.