Brennan Center releases 2010 edition of ‘A Citizen’s Guide to Redistricting’

The Brennan Center for Justice released an updated and expanded “A Citizen’s Guide to Redistricting” to include recent court decisions as well as the latest changes to state and congressional redistricting processes across the country. This edition will provide citizens with the tools needed to get involved with this round of redistricting, and to work towards continuing reform in the decades to come.

Updates to the report include new state redistricting processes and criteria, as well as recent court cases such as the Supreme Court’s 2009 decision in Bartlett v. Strickland to limit redistricting protection to minority communities that are at least 50 percent of a district-sized population.

Why does redistricting matter? 

Every so often, a state’s district lines—for both Congress and the state legislature—are redrawn, grouping different sets of voters together in new ways. Sometimes, the way that a particular district is redrawn directly affects who can win the next election. And together, the way that the districts are redrawn can affect the composition of the legislative delegation or legislature as a whole. Many believe that we would have different representatives, federal and state, if the district lines were drawn differently.

In addition to affecting large political trends, the way that district lines are drawn can have very specific consequences. For instance, in some cases, new lines may be redrawn to leave an incumbent’s house out of the district she used to represent, making it difficult or impossible for her to run for re-election to represent most of her old constituents unless she moves. Other times, lines may be drawn to include the homes of two incumbents in the same party, forcing them to run against each other or retire, and in either case, knocking one of them out of the legislature. Often, sitting legislators from the party controlling the legislature are also in control of drawing new lines, leaving them free to target challengers, or legislators from an opposing party.