Welcome To Down The Line

For Wisconsin Democrats to win state legislative majorities in 2020 they would have had to carry districts that Trump won by 11%. In Michigan, it was Trump by 4%. In Pennsylvania, 3%. That’s meant state chamber results that were disappointing in spite of Biden winning all three states. Why? Because of gerrymandering.

We’re in a redistricting cycle, which means this is our chance to determine whether we can hold politicians accountable over the next decade. The districts that are drawn today will have a huge impact on who voters send to their state capitals and Washington, DC through 2030. They will determine whether lawmakers actually have to appeal to median voters or just govern the state at the behest of radical special interests. If you believe in representative democracy, you need to be paying close attention to what happens with redistricting over the next 2 years.

But what’s going to happen? There are fifty different answers — one for each state.

Redistricting is often covered as a national issue; however, lines will be drawn not in Washington, but in Lansing, Phoenix, Richmond and state capitals across the country. And at Future Now we know states — so we wanted to go deep on what will happen in every state and keep you updated as lines get drawn.

The processes for drawing lines are often convoluted and opaque. That’s by design. The special interests who gerrymander want the process to be impenetrable because it makes it harder to hold them accountable and prevent one of the most pernicious forms of disenfranchisement. But we want to empower people, all the more now that we’ve all seen just how fragile our democracy can be. And we also want to show you how to strengthen democracy through speaking up about redistricting reform.

This is why Future Now has launched Down The Line, a blog dedicated to keeping everyone informed on redistricting in the 2021-2022 cycle. First up is a series providing an overview of the processes in all fifty states. Then it will transform into blogged updates on developments as they occur until every state’s 2022 maps are finalized.

So hey, make yourself comfortable. A few things you need to know going into the series:

Partisan control is not destiny. A lot of national coverage focuses on partisan control of state legislatures to determine what the maps will look like. But as you’ll see the processes in many states cut out state legislatures entirely, and minority parties may still have checks and veto points when the legislature is involved.
A commission isn’t always better than the legislature. Some states have maps drawn by commissions. But a commission isn’t always an improvement, if it’s not independent. Independent commissions made up of voters from across the state like those in California and Arizona tend to do a good job. But in New Jersey, for example, there’s a commission but it’s stacked with politicians and designed to draw safe seats for incumbents.
Census delays are going to make things weird. Normally states would have the data they need to draw lines by now. But owing to a combination of the pandemic and Trump administration mismanagement, states will only start getting this data in August. Many states have deadlines in 2021 that are implicated by this delay, and missing them can cause a political party to lose control over the process.
Your voice matters. It’s easy to look at these convoluted processes, throw up your hands and figure there’s no path to a fair map in some states. The opposite is true! Almost every state has opportunities for public input. And litigation, which uses public input in the evidentiary record, led to mid-decade redistricting in Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
Think something is missing? Get in touch downtheline@futurenow.org.

So let’s figure out what’s going to go on this cycle. In our next post we’ll take a look at Alabama, Alaska, Arizona and Arkansas. And as always, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to email us at downtheline@futurenow.org or hit me up on Twitter at @BobbyBigWheel.

Check out Down The Line here