Redistricting for the US House and the US state legislatures

[lpetrich]

Every 10 years, after each census, each state's government redraws its US House of Representatives districts and its state-legislature districts. That is now happening.

 2020 United States redistricting cycle
Who controls the Congressional-seat redistricting process?

• Republicans: 19 states, 184 seats
• Democrats: 8 states, 75 seats
• Bipartisan / split: 9 states, 63 seats
• Independent commission: 8 states, 107 seats
• Single seats: 6 states, 6 seats

Redistricting for state legislatures agrees with this with these exceptions:

• Republican -> bipartisan / split: 1
• Single seat -> Republican: 3, Democratic: 1, bipartisan / split: 1, independent commission: 1

What Redistricting Looks Like In Every State | FiveThirtyEight - "An updating tracker of proposed congressional maps — and whether they might benefit Democrats or Republicans in the 2022 midterms and beyond."

Watch out for this:  Gerrymandering -  Gerrymandering in the United States

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Why do we need these "districts" and arbitrary district boundaries?

Every 10 years, after each census, each state's government redraws its US House of Representatives districts and its state-legislature districts. That is now happening.

 2020 United States redistricting cycle
Who controls the Congressional-seat redistricting process?

• Republicans: 19 states, 184 seats
• Democrats: 8 states, 75 seats
• Bipartisan / split: 9 states, 63 seats
• Independent commission: 8 states, 107 seats
• Single seats: 6 states, 6 seats

Redistricting for state legislatures agrees with this with these exceptions:

• Republican -> bipartisan / split: 1
• Single seat -> Republican: 3, Democratic: 1, bipartisan / split: 1, independent commission: 1

What Redistricting Looks Like In Every State | FiveThirtyEight - "An updating tracker of proposed congressional maps — and whether they might benefit Democrats or Republicans in the 2022 midterms and beyond."

Watch out for this:  Gerrymandering -  Gerrymandering in the United States

It's laughable.

There should be no such thing as Congressional districts. Nothing in the Constitution requires them.

There are 2 or 3 federal laws about it, but any state has the power to totally do away with its Congressional districts. It would be better for a state to just provide a list of statewide candidates for Congress which all citizens of the state could vote on, without connecting them to geographical "districts" which are meaningless.

A list of candidates could be provided to all voters, across the state, and a voter might be allowed to vote for more than one, depending on the number of seats, the state's population size, etc. Each state could have its own system. Nothing prevents a state from experimenting with a different system which eliminates the districts.

The drawing of these arbitrary district lines is unnecessary and leads to many forms of corruption.

 

[Bomb#20]

It's laughable.

There should be no such thing as Congressional districts. Nothing in the Constitution requires them.

There are 2 or 3 federal laws about it, but any state has the power to totally do away with its Congressional districts. It would be better for a state to just provide a list of statewide candidates for Congress which all citizens of the state could vote on, without connecting them to geographical "districts" which are meaningless.

A list of candidates could be provided to all voters, across the state, and a voter might be allowed to vote for more than one, depending on the number of seats, the state's population size, etc. Each state could have its own system. Nothing prevents a state from experimenting with a different system which eliminates the districts.

The drawing of these arbitrary district lines is unnecessary and leads to many forms of corruption.

I basically agree; but there are a lot of methods for a state to "just provide a list of statewide candidates for Congress which all citizens of the state could vote on", and some of those methods are disastrous, so what you're proposing needs to be carefully thought through. The simplest and most popular version was quite correctly held unconstitutional in Rogers v Lodge, for the county involved.

The basic problem is this: suppose you have five seats and no districts, and 60% of the voters are Republicans and 40% are Democrats, and every voter is allowed to vote for up to five candidates, and the five candidates with the most votes get the five seats. Then if the Republican voters can largely agree among themselves on which five candidates to support, Republicans will get all five seats no matter how the Democrats vote. To have representative democracy there would need to be two Democrats elected.

There are obvious ways to get around this problem, such as giving each voter only one vote, or giving a voter five votes but letting her cast more than one of her votes for the same candidate; but those systems don't seem to have caught on. Actual at-large elections in the U.S. still generally use the simple stupid rule.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Every 10 years, after each census, each state's government redraws its US House of Representatives districts and its state-legislature districts. That is now happening.

 2020 United States redistricting cycle
Who controls the Congressional-seat redistricting process?

• Republicans: 19 states, 184 seats
• Democrats: 8 states, 75 seats
• Bipartisan / split: 9 states, 63 seats
• Independent commission: 8 states, 107 seats
• Single seats: 6 states, 6 seats

Redistricting for state legislatures agrees with this with these exceptions:

• Republican -> bipartisan / split: 1
• Single seat -> Republican: 3, Democratic: 1, bipartisan / split: 1, independent commission: 1

What Redistricting Looks Like In Every State | FiveThirtyEight - "An updating tracker of proposed congressional maps — and whether they might benefit Democrats or Republicans in the 2022 midterms and beyond."

Watch out for this:  Gerrymandering -  Gerrymandering in the United States

It's laughable.

There should be no such thing as Congressional districts. Nothing in the Constitution requires them.

There are 2 or 3 federal laws about it, but any state has the power to totally do away with its Congressional districts. It would be better for a state to just provide a list of statewide candidates for Congress which all citizens of the state could vote on, without connecting them to geographical "districts" which are meaningless.

A list of candidates could be provided to all voters, across the state, and a voter might be allowed to vote for more than one, depending on the number of seats, the state's population size, etc. Each state could have its own system. Nothing prevents a state from experimenting with a different system which eliminates the districts.

The drawing of these arbitrary district lines is unnecessary and leads to many forms of corruption.

Corruption is a synonym, anagram, and a palindrome of Government. Okay, all three of those are not true, but the point is, we have districts, they aren't going anywhere, care to help deal with the real world?

Currently, gerrymandering is being exploited in several states. Texas, Maryland, Ohio, Florida. Pennsylvania was forced to go non-partisan and GOP lost seats there. There are solutions, generally computers and people without partisan agendas (they are called unelected bureaucrats in the campaign ads to not vote in favor of Amendment to create such a group of people).

 

[lpetrich]

There should be no such thing as Congressional districts. Nothing in the Constitution requires them. ...

I basically agree; but there are a lot of methods for a state to "just provide a list of statewide candidates for Congress which all citizens of the state could vote on", and some of those methods are disastrous, so what you're proposing needs to be carefully thought through. The simplest and most popular version was quite correctly held unconstitutional in Rogers v Lodge, for the county involved.

The basic problem is this: suppose you have five seats and no districts, and 60% of the voters are Republicans and 40% are Democrats, and every voter is allowed to vote for up to five candidates, and the five candidates with the most votes get the five seats. Then if the Republican voters can largely agree among themselves on which five candidates to support, Republicans will get all five seats no matter how the Democrats vote. To have representative democracy there would need to be two Democrats elected.

There are obvious ways to get around this problem, such as giving each voter only one vote, or giving a voter five votes but letting her cast more than one of her votes for the same candidate; but those systems don't seem to have caught on. Actual at-large elections in the U.S. still generally use the simple stupid rule.

That's called the bloc vote, block vote, plurality-at-large voting, and  Multiple non-transferable vote

A partisan vote, like what Bomb#20 described, reduces to  General ticket - voting for a complete slate of candidates as if those candidates were a single candidate.

Multi-Member Districts: Just a Thing of the Past? – Sabato's Crystal Ball

 

[Tigers!]

Why every ten years? That is along time to wait with expected population moves.

Why not review after every election? We do that in Australia so it is every three or four years.

 

[Tigers!]

What is the simple stupid rule? (For Bomb20)

 

[Bomb#20]

What is the simple stupid rule? (For Bomb20)

If there are three seats up for grabs, they give you a ballot with all the candidates' names and a circle next to each name. The ballot says "Vote for no more than three". You put a mark in one, two or three of the circles. If you mark four or more circles they throw out your ballot; otherwise they count all the marked circles and the three candidates who got the most marks in their circles get the three seats. (You can find more details at lpetrich's link in post #5.)

This system is what's used in the U.S. for most elections for city councils and county supervisor boards. It used to be used in a lot of state and federal elections too, but for those it has mostly been replaced by gerrymandered districts. I suppose it was inevitable that we'd mostly have to have one or the other of those two systems, since they're the two easiest systems for the sitting government to corrupt. The corruption of gerrymandered districts is obvious; the corruption of "Multiple non-transferable vote" is subtler. If you're interested, check out Rogers v Lodge: a county in Georgia got caught using this system to make sure black candidates never won. The Supreme Court could have declared the system unconstitutional for the whole country, but instead they just ordered that county to stop using it.

 

[lpetrich]

There is a way to get multimember-district members to approximately resemble their voters: proportional representation.

There are several ways to do that.

The most common is party-list, after the tradition of political parties publishing lists of who they want seated. One votes for a party, and the seats are divided up in proportion to how many votes each party received.

This allows multiple parties to compete, though they often form governing coalitions.

Party-list elections can be either closed list, where the party leaderships select all the candidates, or open list, where one can vote for whichever candidates one wants seated first.

A hybrid of party-list and single-member districts is mixed member. Everybody votes for both a district candidate and a party, and the list seats are allocated to make the entire chamber proportional.

A nonpartisan system with proportional results is single transferable vote. That is essentially instant runoff voting generalized to multiple seats, but with the twist that ballots for winning candidates then get downweighted. This is necessary to make the system proportional, because otherwise it degenerates into general ticket, as bloc voting does.

 

[lpetrich]

What Redistricting Looks Like In Every State - Oregon | FiveThirtyEight

Several states now have proposed maps. Some of them don't look very different from the existing map or from each other: AR, ID, IN, ME, NE.

But some of them have sizable differences.

Consider Colorado. Its redistricting commission has produced 4 maps so far. Colorado gained a seat; Dem +, Rep -

• +47, +23, +15, +12, -12, -21, -22 (old) -- median +5.2 -- EG -5.7
• +56, +25, +17, +8, +1, -14, -19, -28 -- median -1.8 -- EG -0.3
• +55, +20, +16, +4, -3, -11, -15, -18 -- median -5.9 -- EG -1.4
• +55, +32, +16, +4, 0, -15, -18, -26 -- median -4.2 -- EG -1.5
• +55, +32, +16, +6, -3, -15, -18, -26 -- median -5.0 -- EG -1.6

Median = (median partisan lean) - (state overall partisan lean)

EG = efficiency gap = (wasted votes for D) - (wasted votes for R)
Wasted votes are votes that do not contribute to a victory: either (# votes) for a defeat or (# votes) - (victory margin) for a victory.

It looks like 3 D, 3 R, and 2 in between.

 

[lpetrich]

Oregon, my current home state, has some drama llama.

I couldn't think of a good summary, so I'll quote the whole thing: What Redistricting Looks Like In Every State - Oregon | FiveThirtyEight

After four days of public hearings, Oregon Democrats last week decided to cut off negotiations with Republicans and move ahead solo with their proposed congressional map — which would create five Democratic-leaning seats and just one Republican-leaning seat. The map passed the state Senate on a party-line vote on Sept. 20 but was expected to meet resistance in the state House, where Democrats and Republicans had agreed to share power on the redistricting committee in exchange for Republicans no longer staging walkouts to block legislative business. However, on Sept. 20, state House Speaker Tina Kotek backed out of that agreement, saying that Republicans were not willing to “engage constructively” in the redistricting process, and appointed a new, Democratic-majority congressional redistricting committee in the hopes of pushing the map through.

Republicans predictably reacted with fury and have reportedly discussed walking out of the legislature to block the passage of the map. As of Sept. 21, it was unclear what they would decide to do; Republicans and Democrats were deep in negotiations until a positive COVID-19 test caused the postponement of the day’s legislative agenda. The House is now expected to meet again on Saturday — rather than Wednesday — after someone who had been in the Capitol tested positive for COVID-19. The redistricting deadline is on Monday.

Ms. Kotek has an unfortunate last name, because it sounds like "Kotex", a brand of menstrual pads that goes back to 1920.

 

[lpetrich]

Oregon gained 1 seat in the recent Congressional redistricting.

• Old: +48, +23, +4, -1, -19 -- median -5.4 -- EG +13.4
• D: +38, +31, +11, +10, +9, -28 -- median -0.4 -- EG +17.0
• R: +54, +35, +2, -2, -4, -18 -- median -10.3 -- EG +16.7

The Republican map is close to the current map, with heavily Republican District 2 to the east of the Cascade mountain range.

The Democratic one has District 3 annex some territory in the Cascades, and moves District 1 northward and northwestward, letting District 5 and the new District 6, both near Salem, get some of the Portland suburbs. District 4, which contains Eugene, moves up the coast, and sacrifices its southeastern part.

Oregon House Republicans boycott redistricting session, claim maps are unfair - OPB

House Republicans remained absent from the Oregon Capitol on Saturday afternoon, denying Democrats a quorum and blocking proposals for redrawing the state’s political districts that GOP lawmakers argue are unfair.

Despite a late attempt by Democrats to float a plan for new congressional districts not tilted as steeply in the majority party’s favor, Republicans elected to stall the Legislature’s redistricting effort. If the stalemate does not end by Monday, lawmakers will lose their once-a-decade chance to create new political maps, turning the process over to Secretary of State Shemia Fagan, a Democrat, and the courts.

Will Oregon Legislature have a quorum for redistricting Monday? - OPB
The deadline is the end of the workday on Monday.

If they miss the deadline, the job of redrawing congressional maps will fall to a panel of five retired judges appointed by the Oregon Supreme Court, and Democratic Secretary of State Shemia Fagan will be tasked with redrawing the state's legislative districts.

...
Saturday morning, Kotek unveiled a new proposed congressional map that some hoped would bring House Republicans back to the bargaining table. That proposal put the newest congressional district south of Portland and mostly east of Interstate 5, same as in a previous plan. But it makes several changes to the proposed borders of the other congressional districts, including keeping Portland and Bend in separate districts instead of combining them.

But that was not enough for the Republicans.

As I wrote this, Monday is today.

 

[lpetrich]

Turning to Iowa, we have only one map proposal:

• (Old): -2, -4, -5, -28 -- Median +5.0 -- EG -41.6
• (Only): +7, -2, -11, -33 -- Median +3.1 -- EG +8.8

Will the Iowa-legislature Republicans gerrymander all the districts into being at least Republican leaning?


Looking at New York, it has 26 districts, down from 27, so I won't try to catch all the numbers.

• (Old): D 17, N 3, R 7 -- median -2.6 -- EG -1.3
• "Letters": D 17, N 3, R 6 -- rel. to old map: R -1 -- median -4.7 -- EG +0.8
• "Names": D 15, N 3, R 8 -- rel. to old map: D -2, R +1 -- median -4.5 -- EG -10.5

N = neither (competitive district)

Dave Wasserman on Twitter: "NEW YORK: strategists I've spoken w/ ..." / Twitter

NEW YORK: strategists I've spoken w/ tell me strong census numbers in NYC could help Dems purge as many as *five* of the eight GOP seats in the state.

In the hypothetical below, Dems would gerrymander the current 19D-8R map (left) into as brutal as a 23D-3R rout (right).

In the scenario above, only three Rs would be spared: Reps. Andrew Garbarino #NY02, Elise Stefanik #NY21 and Chris Jacobs #NY23.

Every Dem incumbent would get a double digit Biden seat (including Maloney #NY18 & Delgado #NY19).

A close-up view of NYC in the above scenario: Staten Island Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R)'s #NY11 would take on Red Hook, Sunset Park & parts of Park Slope and flip from Trump +11 to Biden +10.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D)'s #NY14 would absorb some GOP parts of Westchester.

The only genuinely competitive seat on this map would be Rep. John Katko (R)'s #NY24, who has already proven he can win in a really blue seat.

The thinking here is that he might lose a primary on his right, in which case the new seat would be winnable for a Dem in a general.

 

[lpetrich]

Oregon with the most recent Democratic plan (D2):

• Old: +48, +23, +4, -1, -19 -- median -5.4 -- EG +13.4
• D: +38, +31, +11, +10, +9, -28 -- median -0.4 -- EG +17.0
• R: +54, +35, +2, -2, -4, -18 -- median -10.3 -- EG +16.7
• D2: +43, +34, +9, +7, +3, -28 -- median -2.7 -- EG +17.2

In the new Democratic plan, it's District 5 (east Salem) that extends out to Bend OR instead of District 3 (east Portland).

 

[lpetrich]

New Oregon congressional map imminent after GOP walkout ends - POLITICO
reposted at Yahoo News as
New Oregon congressional map imminent after GOP walkout ends

The day still isn't done.

California is losing a congressional seat. Which one it loses could help the GOP control the House


Democrats say they oppose gerrymandering, but New York’s redistricting will test whether they mean it - The Washington Post

Reconfiguring New York’s congressional districts to benefit Democrats represents perhaps the party’s best shot at keeping the House majority. To do so, state Democrats will need to wrestle control of the redistricting process away from a bipartisan commission set up by voters after the last redrawing.

The temptation to do so will be great: This year marks the first time in a century that the New York Democrats have total control of state government, giving them autonomy over redistricting if they choose to take it.

...
The state’s new Democratic governor Kathy Hochul, who took over after the resignation of Andrew M. Cuomo, has signaled that she is prepared to leverage her position to help Democrats maximize the party’s gains in a way critics of her predecessor say he never did.

...
During the last redistricting in 2011, Democrats held the state Assembly, but Republicans had the majority in the state Senate. They failed to agree on a congressional map, and a federal court was forced to step in and draw the lines.

“New York has been willing to let even the last minute pass and to abdicate the whole of its redistricting power to a reluctant federal court,” the judges wrote at the time.

...
For that year’s legislative maps, Cuomo cut a deal with Republicans, and signed the GOP-majority state Senate’s gerrymandered map, in exchange for their support for a ballot referendum to end future partisan gerrymandering.

In 2014, voters approved a constitutional amendment to set up a separate entity outside the state legislature to control redistricting.

...
“Everyone is now seeing how awful Andrew Cuomo was, but one of his political manipulations was he supported Republicans in the state and that includes agreeing to their redistricting demands,” he said.

...
“I think it’s pretty likely they draw a Democratic gerrymander,” said Adam Podowitz-Thomas of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, a nonpartisan group that analyzes gerrymandering. “There’s not a huge political cost — when it comes to the ballot box no one picks a politician based on whether they gerrymandered or not.”

...
“Nancy Pelosi understands the raw political calculations,” said David Wasserman, a veteran analyst of congressional redistricting for the Cook Political Report. “She understands the GOP is going to be aggressive and she is the farthest type of person who would unilaterally disarm.”

But not gerrymandering when the Republicans gerrymander will be unilateral disarmament.

 

[lpetrich]

Texas congressional map proposal adds new districts to Houston and Austin | The Texas Tribune - "Republicans constructed this map with incumbent protection in mind — a strategy that focused on bolstering Republican seats that Democrats targeted over the last two election cycles rather than aggressively adding new seats that could flip from blue to red."

While many incumbents appear safe in these maps, others were drawn into districts that overlap with one another — for example the proposed map pits Houston Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw against Democrat Rep. Sylvia Garcia. It also pits two Houston Democrats — Reps. Al Green and Sheila Jackson Lee — against each other.

...
If approved, the proposed map would narrow the battlefield of competitive races for both Democrats and Republicans.

Based on 2020 presidential election results, there will only be one district in the state — the 15th Congressional District in South Texas that has a margin between Biden and Trump voters that was less than five points.

As a result, nearly all endangered incumbents on both sides of the aisle will likely have easier paths to reelection.

Republicans plot to keep Texas red in redistricting - POLITICO

Republicans spent tens of millions of dollars in 2020 to keep Democrats from painting more of Texas blue. Now, the GOP is trying to fireproof its districts with a new map that contains the suburban damage they've suffered.

...
The end result is likely to give Republicans control of at least two dozen of the state’s 38 districts — but it is not expected to significantly reduce Democrats’ footprint, which grew slightly over the past 10 years. That's a far cry from the ruthless redistricting happening elsewhere — but also a realization of the GOP's already maxed-out advantage in Texas.

...
But the nature of Texas’ population eruption over the past decade creates limits — both demographic and geographic — on how far Republicans can go in pressing their partisan advantage. Texas is gaining two districts in reapportionment, more than any other state. Yet virtually all of Texas’ population growth came from nonwhite residents, and the exploding areas of the state are generally around major metro areas, which have been racing toward Democrats.

 

[lpetrich]

Texas’s New Congressional Map Could Give A Huge Boost To GOP Incumbents | FiveThirtyEight

• (Old): D 8, N 6, R 22 -- median +2.3 -- EG -12.7
• (1st): D 13, N 1, R 24 -- D +5, N -5, R +2 -- median -12.0 -- EG -15.3

Texas reduces Black and Hispanic congressional districts in proposed map | The Texas Tribune - "The proposed congressional map also increases the number of districts where Trump had a majority of voters over Biden in 2020 and protects Republican incumbents who might have been vulnerable by packing their districts with more Trump voters."


Lt. Governor Jon Husted would like to see more competitive voting districts in Ohio - YouTube

As Ohio’s plan to redraw legislative voting districts sits in limbo subject to a legal challenge, Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted is critiquing both Republicans and Democrats for what they brought to the bargaining table during the drafting phase.

Husted says neither party to the Ohio Redistricting Commission seemed particularly interested in creating more competitive districts, in a wide-ranging conversation on the 3 Things to Know with Stephanie Haney podcast.

CAIR, advocate groups sue GOP's legislative maps in Ohio

Maine redistricting commission reaches deal on Senate maps, avoiding court fight - the State Senate

 

[Swammerdami]

While many incumbents appear safe in these maps, others were drawn into districts that overlap with one another — for example the proposed map pits Houston Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw against Democrat Rep. Sylvia Garcia. It also pits two Houston Democrats — Reps. Al Green and Sheila Jackson Lee — against each other.

...
If approved, the proposed map would narrow the battlefield of competitive races for both Democrats and Republicans.
...
As a result, nearly all endangered incumbents on both sides of the aisle will likely have easier paths to reelection.

Republicans spent tens of millions of dollars in 2020 to keep Democrats from painting more of Texas blue. Now, the GOP is trying to fireproof its districts with a new map that contains the suburban damage they've suffered....

So, the Ds and Rs finally find an issue on which they can agree! A Bipartisan agenda! Protect the incumbents!!

Well, almost agree. The Rs will do all they can to maximize gerrymandering. Ds may litigate, but Scotus will decide, in a 5-4 or 6-3 decision, that gerrymandering is just fine.

I'm tempted to change my .sig to "American democracy is doomed. Get over it." But there might be a teeny bit of hope. If Millennials start vigorous protest soon.

Nah. American democracy is doomed. Get over it.

 

[lpetrich]

Democrats pass new Oregon congressional map after GOP walkout ends - POLITICO

The Oregon state House reached a grudging compromise on a new congressional map that would create four Democratic districts, a safe Republican seat and one potential battleground, bringing an end to a bitter partisan standoff.

...
The compromise map passed the state House on Monday afternoon in a 33-16 vote, and the state Senate concurred in an 18-6 vote. It now heads to Democratic Gov. Kate Brown's desk for her signature before midnight.

It was the capstone for a tough few days for Oregon Republicans, who were forced to choose between a series of bad choices that would determine their political fate at the state and federal level for the next decade.

...
The initial Democratic plan cracked Portland like a pinwheel, creating five seats that strongly favored Democrats, and one deep red seat in the eastern half of the state, currently held by GOP Rep. Cliff Bentz.

...
This new map places Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader’s home in the most competitive district in the state, but even then it still favors Democrats.

Schrader could also choose to run in the state’s new 6th District. That seat, allotted to Oregon in reapportionment, leans more Democratic and includes some of Schrader’s old turf.

Democratic Rep. Peter DeFazio is a big winner under the map — his western Oregon seat becomes less competitive. Blumenauer and fellow Democratic Rep. Suzanne Bonamici will retain their deep-blue districts.

Oregon Legislature passes new legislative and congressional redistricting plans, sends them to Gov. Kate Brown for signature - oregonlive.com

Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, will now decide whether to sign the bills into law before midnight, the deadline set by the Oregon Supreme Court earlier this year when it gave state officials more time to complete redistricting due to U.S. Census delays.

“Because the bills would not take effect before midnight without her signature, my understanding is the governor would need to sign the bills before midnight to meet the deadline,” Brown’s deputy communications director Charles Boyle wrote in an email.

Boyle said the governor’s staff still needs to do some due diligence on the two redistricting bills but “barring any unforeseen issues the governor intends to sign the bills.”

 

[lpetrich]

Gov. Brown signs Oregon redistricting into law | KOIN.com

Oregon state Republican lawmakers showed up for work Monday in the Capitol, resulting in a quorum to vote on the proposed map for redrawing the state’s congressional districts."

...
Republicans in the afternoon session said the new maps “makes it non-competitive” and called it “blatant and unabashed gerrymandering.”

Democrats, though, countered the maps “are fair and are representative, in line with legal requirements and reflect the immense population growth we’ve seen in Oregon.”

Congressional plans were sent to the redistricting committee to be formally adopted when the House reconvened Monday afternoon. After discussion on the House floor, the new district map passed.

Governor Kate Brown on Twitter: "For the first time in 40 years, Oregon is gaining a congressional seat––another member to advocate for the common good of all Oregonians. ..." / Twitter

For the first time in 40 years, Oregon is gaining a congressional seat––another member to advocate for the common good of all Oregonians. I just signed the redistricting bills passed by the Legislature today. Thank you to everyone who came together to get this done for Oregon. We as a state have faced numerous challenges the past 18+ months that have urgently required federal attention and resources, and I am grateful that the Legislature came together to pass today’s historic legislation. Thank you especially to Rep. @AndreaRSalinas and Senator Kathleen Taylor for their work as redistricting chairs.

Read my full statement:

State of Oregon Newsroom : NewsDetail : State of Oregon - "Governor Kate Brown Signs Redistricting Bills"

Oregon’s redistricting maps official, after lawmakers pass them, Gov. Kate Brown signs off - oregonlive.com
Oregon House passes redistricting bills | kgw.com


Third redistricting lawsuit: Ohio Statehouse maps dilute minority votes - "Recently approved Ohio Statehouse maps dilute the votes of Black Ohioans, Muslims and other minorities in the state, according to a third lawsuit filed at the Ohio Supreme Court Monday."