Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota and Mississippi Redistricting Previews Credit: Olivia Hodges Massachusetts State Legislative Lines Drawn By: State Legislature (Senate: 37D, 3R, House: 129 D, 30R, 1I)Congressional Districts: 9Congressional Lines Drawn By: State LegislatureSubject to Gubernatorial Veto: Yes (Republican)State Supreme Court: 7-0 Republican appointees, though 2 have Democratic ties as wellDeadlines: Filing Deadline June 7, 2022 Democrats’ strong margins in the Massachusetts legislature are a tad misleading – because the state is so Democratic many conservative/moderate areas still elect Democrats to the legislature so they can wield influence within the majority caucus. Nevertheless, the state party has enough power in the legislature to override the Republican governor’s vetoes. Which likely means another state legislative map they can win supermajorities on. And another congressional map that would likely result in a 9-0 Democratic congressional delegation. Would redistricting reform impact that at all? It’s nearly impossible to see a Massachusetts congressional map that contains a single district that voted for Trump in 2020 that doesn’t break up communities of interest. The state’s Republican voters are just spread too thinly. That’s not to say a 9-0 Biden map would not reflect the state politically. In 2014 Republican Charlie Baker narrowly won the Massachusetts gubernatorial election. It’s possible to draw a clean-looking map that would have 5 districts that voted for Baker and 4 for his Democratic opponent, Martha Coakley. Michigan State Legislative Lines Drawn By: Independent Commission (4D-4R-5I)Congressional Districts: 13Congressional Lines Drawn By: Same CommissionState Supreme Court: 4-3 DemocraticDeadlines: TBD due to Census Delays Could we be at the end of decades of minority rule in Michigan? Democrats have routinely won more than 50% of the vote for the State House over the past decade but couldn’t get a majority in the chamber because of gerrymandering. Thankfully in 2018, Michigan voters passed an initiative that put an independent commission in charge of drawing lines. It will very likely lead to an improvement over the status quo. How much of an improvement remains to be seen. The most notable criteria that the commission has to consider are reflecting communities of interest, consideration of political boundaries like county and township lines, and “not providing a disproportionate advantage to a political party, measured by accepted measures of partisan fairness.” Sounds good, right? Well there are a few risks with the commission and the criteria The independent members of the commission were chosen at random and they seem to be more on the conservative side. There are safeguards against a gerrymander in the criteria and courts, but it could still end up giving the current majority a slight edge.The commission can pass maps that are skewed toward one of the parties as long as there are sufficient justifications from other criteria to do so.The partisan fairness criteria are also vague. In this series I’ve tried to use the median seat (i.e. the seat that determines partisan control of the chamber) being close to the state’s presidential toplines as an indicator of partisan fairness. Presidential vote is the top predictor of a legislative candidate’s performance so it makes sense. But there are other measures that the commission could use. And there may be localized or composite measures that may effectively measure the map’s ability to reflect the will of voters. But we should still see the median seat be close to the Biden (+3) and Whitmer (+10) toplines or else it may provide an unfair advantage to one of the political parties. That said, there’s risk inherent in any redistricting process and Michigan’s is designed to function better than all but a few states’. Minnesota State Legislative Lines Drawn By: State Legislature (Senate 31D-34R-2I, House 70D-64R)Congressional Districts: 8Congressional Lines Drawn By: State LegislatureSubject to Gubernatorial Veto: Yes (Democratic)State Supreme Court: 5-2 DemocraticDeadlines: Maps must be set 25 weeks before the primary, so February 15, 2022 Minnesota hasn’t had a single party control redistricting in the state since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1964’s Reynolds v. Sims that state legislative districts need to have near equal population. Which means that in practice its state legislative and congressional districts have been drawn by the state supreme court right before the statutory deadline. In 2012, that court had a Republican majority and produced a map that looked facially fair but had a pronounced lean – its median state House seats have been 5-8 points more Republican than the presidential race in every election in the past decade. Now that the court has a new majority it may be more amenable to producing a map that better reflects the state’s political leanings. Population shifts could also impact the new map; conservative rural Minnesota is losing population but the Twin Cities and their suburbs are growing. Last cycle the court encouraged public input, including allowing people to submit their own maps. If they do so again, Minnesota activists can take advantage. Mississippi State Legislative Lines Drawn By: State Legislature (Senate: 16D-36R, House: 44D, 75R, 3I)Congressional Districts: 4Congressional Lines Drawn By: State LegislatureSubject to Gubernatorial Veto: Yes (Republican)State Supreme Court: 8-1 RepublicanDeadlines: Legislature has until April 3, 2022 to pass Legislative plan or it goes to GOP-controlled backup commission, Congressional Filing Deadline is March 1, 2022 Mississippi is another state where the most leverage that Democrats have likely comes from the VRA; the state constitution vests the rest of the process with institutions controlled by Republicans. Notably the state requires the budget be passed on a ⅗ vote. That means the minority only needs to win 40% of seats to have a say in what the state spends money on. As the minority party routinely wins more than 40% of the vote in statewide races and are spread relatively broadly across the state, it should not be too difficult to draw a map where they have a chance at winning 40% of the seats. As for the congressional map, it’s possible to draw two seats that have majority Black populations, up from one today. Such a map would also reflect the state politically far more fairly than the current one, where ¾ of the seats are safely Republican. But it’s unlikely such a map passes the legislature and it’s unclear whether litigation could result in such.