Arizona's Senate has rejected a GOP effort to carve up the state's largest county in a desperate bid to cling to power, but even though one-quarter of Republican lawmakers voted against it, the plan is not dead. The bill's chief sponsor says he intends to bring it up again next year, and could win more support the next time around.

Earlier this year, GOP lawmakers introduced legislation that would divide Maricopa County, which contains three-fifths of the state's population and most of the Phoenix metro area, into four separate counties. The right-wing hardliners who backed the measure claimed they're motivated by a desire to improve local government, but the proposal would almost certainly dilute the political power of the Phoenix area’s growing Latino and Black populations while advantaging white Republicans. The scheme harkens back to the Jim Crow era, when white supremacists redrew county lines across the South to undermine Black voting power.

While both Arizona at large and Maricopa in particular had long been Republican strongholds, both jurisdictions flipped to Joe Biden in 2020 and began voting Democratic for Senate and governor for the first time in many years. That same year, Republicans narrowly preserved their 4-1 majority on the county's Board of Supervisors despite Biden's win, but GOP county leaders have since strongly resisted Donald Trump's election denial schemes and in doing so enraged their party's MAGA wing. Thanks to this internal Republican split and Maricopa's blue trend, Democrats have a real chance to flip the board in 2024 and take charge of this county of 4.4 million people, which is the nation's fourth largest.

Given the rampant election denialism by the measure's backers—the lead Senate sponsor, Jake Hoffman, was even on Trump’s fraudulent "alternative" Electoral College slate that tried to steal the election from Biden—it's hard not to see this plan as motivated squarely by partisanship, if not race, too.

While the bill's shoddy description of the proposed redraw leaves some ambiguity, an approximate version is shown at the top of this post. The redrawn map would shrink Maricopa County down to roughly 40% of its current population and carve out three new counties from the remainder. However, more than 80% of Maricopa's current Latino and Black populations would remain in the shrunken county, turning it from 53% white to 65% people of color. The three newly created counties, by contrast, would each range from about 60 to 70% white.

Those wide racial disparities would unsurprisingly yield similar partisan gaps as shown on the map below (click here to enlarge). While Biden won Maricopa County 50-48, packing voters of color into the proposed shrunken county would have yielded a 64-35 victory for the president according to data from Dave's Redistricting App. As a result, each of the three new counties would have gone for Trump, with "Hohokam" and "Mogollon" giving him 53-54% and "O'odham" 58%.

Since presidential voting patterns correlate closely with how votes are cast further down the ballot, Republicans would very likely retain local control of the three new counties. Democrats, meanwhile, would be left with a rump county less than two-fifths of its present size, when they might soon govern the entirety of it if the proposal doesn't become law. The GOP plan, in short, is a partisan gerrymander.

While Maricopa is one of the country's largest counties and steadily growing, there are nonetheless good reasons to leave it undivided. The existing borders largely correspond to the boundaries of the city Phoenix and the vast majority of its burgeoning suburbs, making it easier for officials to coordinate on key policies affecting the whole region. (A terrific counterexample is the similarly sized Atlanta metro area, which covers 29 counties—a balkanization directly responsible for the region's brutal traffic congestion.)

If Republicans were sincere in their aims, they could instead propose moving Maricopa's rural areas into their own counties or adjacent existing ones. Instead, their redraw would divide numerous suburbs from each other and even split the city of Phoenix nearly in half between two new counties.

Although Hoffman and other GOP proponents argue that splitting the county makes better sense for allocating water usage and furthers small-government goals, local Republican officials steadfastly dispute that. In data provided to legislators when a similar bill was debated last year, Maricopa estimated that funding the new governments of the three additional counties would cost $155 million annually and require tax increases to fund newly created court systems, jails, and other facilities.

While opponents can celebrate for the moment, given the Republican Party's descent into election denialism nationally and in Arizona in particular, proposals like this one—which discriminate against voters of color and target Democrats—are likely to keep gaining traction on the right. Even though Hoffman and his allies have failed this time, they may succeed in the years to come as Arizona's growing diversity overtakes a once-dominant conservative white majority.

Leading Off

●Pennsylvania: State House Republicans have passed a constitutional amendment out of committee and onto the full floor that would adopt several new voting restrictions. The amendment includes a voter ID requirement to be defined by later legislation. It would further ban counties from accepting private grants to remedy election administration underfunding, a restriction that Republicans have enacted in a number of states this year after nonprofits linked to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other wealthy donors gave millions to fund election administration last year.

The amendment would also turn the secretary of state from a position appointed by the governor into a partisan official elected by voters, and it would require the state auditor to conduct supposed "audits" before election results are certified. However, state law already requires counties to conduct election audits, but Republicans in Pennsylvania, Arizona, and other states have pressed for sham audits of the 2020 results that lack rigorous standards as a way to discredit Joe Biden's victory, so this amendment may just be a continuation of that effort.

Republicans are using a constitutional amendment as a way to circumvent a potential veto by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, who has no role in the process. Instead, amendments must pass the legislature both before and after a general election takes place, after which voters have the ultimate say on the proposal via a referendum.

Redistricting

●AR Redistricting: Both chambers of Arkansas' Republican-run legislature have passed the GOP's new congressional map, which splits the state's largest county three ways to dilute the strength of Black voters and Democrats, sending it to Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson for his approval. The gerrymandered map would shore up Republican Rep. French Hill in the 2nd District, which saw competitive elections the last two cycles. Hutchinson says he'll decide whether to sign it into law next week, though a veto would be shocking.

●CO Redistricting: Two Latino advocacy groups filed briefs with the state Supreme Court challenging Colorado's new congressional redistricting proposal, which they argue dilutes the voting power of minority communities in contravention of the state constitution. Democratic groups also filed their own objections, including a concern about whether the commission faithfully followed a separate directive to maximize the number of competitive districts.

Objections were due by Friday, and the justices will now hold oral arguments on Tuesday before rendering a decision by Nov. 1. If they reject the map, commissioners would get a second chance to draw another one to address the court's objections.

●IA Redistricting: Republicans in the Iowa Senate on Tuesday voted down congressional and legislative maps proposed by the state's nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency over the objections of Democrats, prompting their counterparts in the state House to say they would not consider the maps at all. What happens next, however, is not clear.

In past cycles, as Bloomberg's Greg Giroux notes, lawmakers have twice rejected initial proposals from the LSA, whose work has often been upheld as a model for nonpartisan mapmaking but is only advisory in nature. On one occasion, they approved the agency's second map, while on another, they agreed to its third plan. However, if it gets as far as a third iteration, Republicans would be able to amend it freely, allowing them to gerrymander to whatever extent they desire.

That's never happened before, because in the prior four decades since the legislature passed a bill giving the LSA a central role in redistricting, control over state government has always been divided between the two parties immediately following each census. This time, however, Republicans hold the governing trifecta, which would allow them to run roughshod over the LSA's recommendations, or even repeal its role outright—precisely what Democrats most fear. The only reason the GOP might hesitate is if it fears a backlash for torching 40 years of nonpartisan redistricting, but if there's one thing we've seen time and again, few voters care about process stories.

●IN Redistricting: Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed new congressional and legislative maps on Monday that were passed by fellow Republicans in the legislature late last week. The maps ensure outsize dominance for the GOP through partisan gerrymandering, as we detailed in our earlier coverage.

●NJ Redistricting: New Jersey Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner has tapped Philip Carchman, a retired state appellate judge, as the tiebreaking member of the state's Apportionment Commission, which will handle legislative redistricting. Carchman was not on the list of tiebreakers proposed by the two parties in August, which contained no overlapping names, allowing Rabner, who was appointed to his post by Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine, to make his own choice.

Carchman also has his roots in Democratic politics, though he was first named to the bench in 1986 by Republican Gov. Tom Kean. According to the New Jersey Globe, Carchman made some donations to Democratic candidates in the early 1980s, but the last occasion was the year before his appointment. In 2004, he took a leave of absence to serve as the administrative director of the state's court system before returning to the courtroom in 2008 and retiring in 2012. Carchman will now be in the position of choosing between legislative maps proposed by Democrats and Republicans on the commission, which must complete its work by March 1.

In August, following a slightly different process, the state Supreme Court named former Justice John Wallace, who'd been put forth by Democrats, as the tiebreaker for New Jersey's separate congressional redistricting panel.

●TX Redistricting: Texas' Republican-run legislature has advanced several redistricting plans that they'd recently proposed, all of which would lock in GOP gerrymanders. Before the full state Senate, Republican lawmakers passed a new map for the chamber's own districts and a new congressional map, both with some tweaks to prior versions. Meanwhile, in the state House, a committee signed off on a new map for the lower chamber on a party-line vote, again with some modifications.

Voting Access Expansions

●Congress: On Thursday, Senate Democrats introduced their own version of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (designated S. 4), which follows House Democrats passing their version of the bill in August (designated H.R. 4). As we have previously explained, the legislation named after the late Rep. and civil rights leader John Lewis aims to restore the protections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and reverse much of the damage wrought by two decades of Supreme Court decisions that limited the ability of voting rights supporters to use the VRA to combat voting restriction laws and racial gerrymandering.

The two versions of the bill are fairly similar overall, but S. 4 does contain some key differences affecting which jurisdictions would be subject to Justice Department preclearance for any voting changes and which types of voter ID laws would be subject to practice-based preclearance everywhere, with the Senate version covering only the most restrictive ID requirements.

In contrast to the House version, S. 4 also incorporates the Native American Voting Rights Act that was proposed by Sen. Ben Ray Luján to make it easier for tribes to request voting sites and mail ballot drop boxes on tribal lands and authorize tribal IDs for use under voter ID laws. It also integrates provisions of a separate proposal by Sen. Jon Ossoff intended to add new legal protections for election workers, their families, and polling place locations to prevent harassment and intimidation amid an unprecedented surge in threats against poll workers fueled by believers of Donald Trump's election conspiracy theories.

Of course, Senate Democrats still face a steep challenge in trying to get S. 4 or any other voting rights legislation passed so long as moderate Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema refuse to consider curtailing the filibuster to overcome unanimous GOP obstruction. It so far remains to be seen what if anything could get the centrist holdouts to change their minds.

●California: Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a bill that will create a statewide standard for verifying mail ballot signatures and require officials to contact voters with signature issues to help resolve them.

●Massachusetts: State Senate Democrats have passed a bill that would permanently adopt pandemic-related measures that temporarily expanded early voting and no-excuse mail voting in Massachusetts. The bill would also implement same-day voter registration and new requirements to ensure that people with disabilities and incarcerated people who have not lost their voting rights can vote.

Republican Gov. Charlie Baker has expressed his opposition to same-day registration despite supporting the expansion of no-excuse mail and early voting. However, every Senate Democrat supported the bill, and if House Democrats are as unified, they would easily have the votes to override a potential veto.

Voter Suppression

●Arkansas: A state lower court has rejected GOP officials' attempt to dismiss a lawsuit challenging four voting restriction laws that Republicans enacted earlier this year, allowing the case to go forward on the merits. Backed by the nonpartisan League of Women Voters, the plaintiffs are opposing laws that:

• Eliminate the ability of voters who lack ID to sign a sworn statement and instead strictly require ID for ballots to count.
• Require voters to return their absentee ballots to election officials by the Friday before Election Day instead of by Election Day itself—all but one other state sets that deadline on Election Day or afterward.
• Require a voter's signature on an absentee ballot application to match their original signature on their voter registration form, even though voter signatures often change over time.
• Effectively ban giving food or drinks to voters waiting in line to vote by restricting who may linger near polling place entrances.

●Kentucky: A panel of three judges on the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a lower court decision and revived a lawsuit challenging Kentucky's process for restoring voting rights to people with felony convictions, which the plaintiffs argue is unconstitutionally arbitrary. Kentucky is one of just a few states where state law still permanently disenfranchises people convicted of any felony unless the governor individually restores their rights, but Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear issued an executive order shortly after his 2019 victory to automatically restore those rights for people who've fully served their sentences for non-violent felony convictions.

Despite Beshear's executive order, people convicted of certain violent felonies must still petition the governor to restore their rights upon completion of their sentences, a category that included three of the plaintiffs. The appellate court's ruling held that the case was not moot because those plaintiffs were unaffected by Beshear's order. The panel sent the case back to the district court so that it can rule on the merits of the plaintiffs' lawsuit.

Ballot Measures

●California: Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed a bill that would have banned paying signature-gatherers for ballot measures or recall elections on a per-signature basis instead of hourly, arguing it was a flawed attempt at reducing the power of wealthy groups to bankroll elections. However, Newsom has said he will back two constitutional amendments in the wake of the failed recall campaign against him that would increase the number of signatures required for recalls and have the lieutenant governor take over if voters recall the governor instead of having a free-for-all second question on a replacement governor.

The new redistricting cycle is set to begin in earnest on Aug. 12 with the release of key census data, and as they did a decade ago, Republicans are set to dominate the playing field to the detriment of both Democrats and democracy. Below we'll catalog how the redistricting process will work in all 50 states and which party—if any—is positioned to control how the next set of maps look, both at the congressional and legislative levels. We'll keep this post updated as new developments occur, so be sure to keep it bookmarked.

Coming out of the 2020 elections, Republicans maintained a considerable upper hand over redistricting that will let them draw four or five out of every 10 congressional districts nationally. Democrats, meanwhile, will only be able to draw fewer than two out of 10, as shown in the map at the top of this post (see here for a larger version).

This marks the third straight cycle where the GOP will enjoy a huge advantage in carving out new maps, an edge almost as extreme as the one Republicans chalked up after the lopsided 2010 elections, when they won the power to craft just over half of all House districts and Democrats just one-tenth. That huge disparity helped Republicans win the House in 2012 despite the fact that Democratic candidates won more votes that year. The same story also played out in several legislatures in key swing states multiple times over the past 10 years.

A repeat of GOP minority rule is now a strong risk for 2022 and beyond. And in an era where most House Republicans have shown their openness toward overturning Democratic victories in the Electoral College, a House where Republicans win a majority in 2024 due to gerrymandering could spark a constitutional crisis over the outcome of the next presidential election.

Republican minority rule is a risk in the states as well, since control of legislative redistricting will also heavily favor Republicans, as shown in the map below (see here for a larger version). This map is very similar to the one above, with the only differences showing up in Missouri, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Oregon, as well as the six states that are entitled to just a single congressional district.

The future of redistricting is also highly contingent on the Supreme Court's new far-right majority, which could both further undermine the Voting Rights Act and strip away checks on GOP state legislatures. It's possible the court could strike down all independent redistricting commissions (at least those responsible for congressional maps), or even eliminate governors' ability to veto congressional maps, under the radical argument that the Constitution gives legislatures—and legislatures alone—the power to draw new lines.

We also don't know to what degree Donald Trump's interference corrupted the accuracy of the census in ways that might have disproportionately undercounted people of color to the detriment of Democrats.

One other unexpected factor, which arose due both to the pandemic and Trump's meddling, is a delay in the release of key population data from the Census Bureau that's needed to conduct redistricting. That data, which is normally due by April 1, is now set to become available on Aug. 12, though mapmakers will have to first spend some time processing the data before they can deploy it.

That delay has wreaked havoc with redistricting timelines in many states, since a number impose legally mandated deadlines that have now become impossible to meet and may require legislation or litigation to overcome. Other states have already moved ahead with redistricting by using population estimates instead of firm census figures to draw maps sooner, which has already sparked lawsuits over the legality of using this less precise data.

Democrats in Congress still have time to systematically change these expectations by passing H.R. 1, a law that bans congressional gerrymandering nationally. However, with certain senators steadfastly opposing the elimination of the filibuster, it remains to be seen whether some sort of agreement can be reached with those holdouts to overcome GOP obstruction

While the most prominent of multiple holdouts, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, laid out the roadmap to a potential compromise in June, the prospects for H.R. 1 still seem dim. That means partisan control over the coming round of redistricting is now likely set, barring unforeseen circumstances. This means we can delve into the redistricting landscape in every state, laying out how each state's redistricting laws work and which of the two parties, if either, will call the shots. We've also addressed the threat of the Supreme Court and a tainted census in this separate article.

Below, we'll lay out the key points for understanding redistricting for each state, including:

• The number of House seats each state received in the 2020 round of reapportionment and whether a state gained or lost House seats compared to 2010
• The current partisan control over redistricting (both congressional and legislative)
• The expected partisan intent behind any final maps
• Which institutions handle the redistricting process
• What we expect to unfold

The partisan control designation looks at which party, if any, currently has power over redistricting, but partisan intent differs in that it looks at which party the responsible mapmakers sought to favor regardless of which institution draws the districts. We make this distinction because, for a variety of reasons, sometimes the two are not the same.

This happened in a few states a decade ago. For instance, even though Vermont's state government was dominated by Democrats who could have pushed through gerrymandered legislative maps favoring their own party, lawmakers actually passed largely neutral maps with widespread bipartisan support.

New Jersey, meanwhile, relies on a bipartisan commission to handle congressional redistricting, with a tiebreaking member who typically picks a map submitted by one of the parties. In 2011, that commission passed a pro-GOP gerrymander chosen by the tiebreaker, who had previously served as state attorney general under a Republican governor.

Furthermore, while we broadly describe courts as nonpartisan entities—since judges are supposed to dispassionately apply the law—they may not always be in practice when it comes to redistricting, particularly in states where they are directly elected. And even a genuinely nonpartisan court can still produce an outcome that favors one party if it doesn't seek to ensure that outcomes are fair on a partisan basis.

We will continue to add to this section as states make their way through the redistricting process over the course of 2021 and 2022; for instance, when states adopt final maps or if there are changes in the expected partisan intent, though we won't be including every minute detail given the flurry of impending activity in all the states.

● Alabama

Number of Congressional Districts: 7

Partisan Control: Republican

Partisan Intent: Likely Republican

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor (veto override takes a simple majority)

Current Outlook: Republicans gerrymander both the congressional and legislative maps for the second decade in a row.

● Alaska

Number of Congressional Districts: 1

Partisan Control: Republican (legislative only)

Partisan Intent: Likely Republican (legislative only)

Responsible Institution(s): Politician-appointed commission of five members, with the governor picking two commissioners and the state Supreme Court chief justice, state Senate leader, and state House leader each picking one

Current Outlook: Republicans gerrymander the legislative maps because they have a 3-2 majority on the commission. Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy and the Republican leader of the Senate collectively selected three Republican members, while the chief justice (who was appointed by a prior Republican governor but has a reputation as an independent) and the speaker of the House (a Democratic-aligned independent) both tapped independents.

● Arizona

Number of Congressional Districts: 9

Partisan Control: Nonpartisan commission

Partisan Intent: Likely neutral or possibly Republican

Responsible Institution(s): Independent redistricting commission, created by voters in a 2000 constitutional amendment, with two Democrats, two Republicans, and one unaffiliated commissioner. The state commission on appellate court appointments nominates pools of 10 Democrats, 10 Republicans, and five independents, from which the four leaders of the majority and minority party in each chamber of the legislature each choose one commissioner. Those four commissioners then choose an unaffiliated tiebreaker. Maps are required to adhere to nonpartisan criteria and prioritize political competitiveness.

Current Outlook: The commission may draw either relatively nonpartisan congressional and legislative maps or ones that somewhat favor Republicans.

However, there's a significant risk that the Supreme Court will strike down all congressional redistricting commissions that were passed by citizen-initiated ballot measures without the support of legislators, including Arizona's. Republicans control the governorship and legislature, meaning an invalidated commission would also see the GOP gain full control over congressional redistricting (legislative redistricting would likely be unaffected).

Even if the Supreme Court leaves the commission in place, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey stacked the judicial nominating commission, which screens redistricting commission applicants, by appointing only Republicans and conservative-aligned independents and no Democrats.

That has raised questions about the pool of five independents from which the four partisan redistricting commissioners were able to choose a tiebreaker. While that fifth commissioner, psychologist Erika Schupak Neuberg, was selected unanimously, she has sparked concerns after twice voting with the GOP commissioners to offer key hires to firms or individuals with ties to Republicans.

It remains to be seen whether Ducey's efforts to limit the applicant pool have succeeded in securing a tiebreaking member who will ultimately side with the GOP to allow them to pass some degree of gerrymandered maps, or whether concerns over the validity of Neuberg's independence will prove unfounded.

● Arkansas

Number of Congressional Districts: 4

Partisan Control: Republican

Partisan Intent: Likely Republican

Responsible Institution(s): Congressional: state legislature and governor (veto override takes a simple majority)

Legislative: commission created by a 1936 constitutional amendment and consisting of the governor, secretary of state, and attorney general

Current Outlook: Republicans gerrymander both the congressional and legislative maps.

● California

Number of Congressional Districts: 52 (-1 compared to 2010)

Partisan Control: Nonpartisan commission

Partisan Intent: Likely neutral

Responsible Institution(s): Independent redistricting commission, created by voters in a pair of constitutional amendments passed in 2008 and 2010, with five Democrats, five Republicans, and four unaffiliated members. A panel of three state auditors chooses from applicants to select 20 Democrats, 20 Republicans, and 20 unaffiliated nominees. The four legislative majority and minority party leaders can each eliminate two applicants from each of the three pools, leaving the pools with 12 nominees apiece. From those 36, three Democrats, three Republicans, and two unaffiliated commissioners are randomly chosen, and those eight commissioners collectively select the other six.

Majority support from each of the three political groupings is required to pass a map. Maps must adhere to nonpartisan criteria that prioritize communities of interest and the protection of minority voting rights over compactness. While maps cannot be drawn to favor or disfavor a party (or incumbent), there is no explicit requirement for partisan fairness using statistical measures. Maps are also subject to potential override by voters through a ballot referendum.

Current Outlook: The commission draws relatively nonpartisan congressional and legislative maps. However, like in Arizona, California's commission could get struck down by the Supreme Court for congressional redistricting, which would leave Democrats in control.

● Colorado

Number of Congressional Districts: 8 (+1 compared to 2010)

Partisan Control: Nonpartisan commission

Partisan Intent: Likely neutral

Responsible Institution(s): Independent redistricting commissions (one each for Congress and the legislature), approved by voters in 2018. A panel of three retired appellate judges, one from each major party and one who is unaffiliated, randomly select commissioners from a pool of applicants. The four legislative party leaders choose a pool of 10 applicants each to submit to the panel of judges for random selection. Democrats, Republicans, and independents each have four members on the commission. It takes two votes from each bloc to pass a map.

Any adopted maps have to follow several strict criteria: following federal law; preserving communities of interest (which the state constitution defines in detail); keeping cities and counties whole; maximizing compactness; maximizing the number of politically competitive districts; banning the intentional favoring or disfavoring of a party or candidate; and preventing the dilution of the electoral strength of voters belonging to a racial or ethnic minority.

Current Outlook: Colorado's new commissions pass relatively fair congressional and legislative maps.

● Connecticut

Number of Congressional Districts: 5

Partisan Control: Divided state government

Partisan Intent: Likely neutral

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature, subject to a two-thirds supermajority requirement. If the legislature deadlocks, a bipartisan "backup" commission established by a 1976 constitutional amendment draws the maps. The state legislative majority and minority party leaders appoint four Democrats and four Republicans to the backup commission, and those commissioners then choose a tiebreaking ninth member.

Current Outlook: Democrats have a two-thirds supermajority in the state Senate but lack a supermajority in the state House, meaning Democrats and Republicans in the legislature would have to reach a compromise to avoid a deadlock. If not, the backup commission would have to reach a compromise on a tiebreaking member. If they fail to do so, a court will draw maps relying on the nonpartisan criteria that courts almost always use when redistricting falls to them. After the 2010 census, the two parties compromised on legislative maps at the backup commission stage, but a deadlock led to a court drawing the congressional map.

● Delaware

Number of Congressional Districts: 1

Partisan Control: Democratic (legislative only)

Partisan Intent: Likely Democratic (legislative only)

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor

Current Outlook: Democrats gerrymander the state legislative maps.

● Florida

Number of Congressional Districts: 28 (+1 compared to 2010)

Partisan Control: Republican

Partisan Intent: Likely Republican

Responsible Institution(s): Congressional: state legislature and governor for congressional redistricting

Legislative: legislature only (governor lacks veto power)

Florida voters passed two "Fair Districts" amendments to the state constitution in 2010 that attempted to ban partisan gerrymandering. The state Supreme Court used those measures to curtail the GOP's congressional and state Senate gerrymanders in 2015.

Current Outlook: At the time of the previous state Supreme Court ruling, a liberal-centrist bloc held a 5-2 majority on the bench. Hardline conservatives have since gained a majority on Florida's Supreme Court thanks to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' 2018 victory, and it's likely that this new conservative majority will let Republicans gerrymander again, though to what degree is uncertain.

● Georgia

Number of Congressional Districts: 14

Partisan Control: Republican

Partisan Intent: Likely Republican

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor

Current Outlook: Republicans gerrymander the congressional and legislative maps.

● Hawaii

Number of Congressional Districts: 2

Partisan Control: Bipartisan commission

Partisan Intent: Likely neutral

Responsible Institution(s): Bipartisan commission, in place since a 1968 constitutional amendment, with eight members appointed by the four legislative majority and minority leaders and a ninth member chosen by the state Supreme Court if the two parties cannot agree on a tiebreaker.

Current Outlook: The commission compromises on a tiebreaker or the court appoints one, leading to relatively nonpartisan congressional and legislative maps.

● Idaho

Number of Congressional Districts: 2

Partisan Control: Bipartisan commission

Partisan Intent: Likely neutral

Responsible Institution(s): Bipartisan commission created by a 1994 constitutional amendment, consisting of three Democrats and three Republicans, with the four legislative majority and minority party leaders and the two state party chairs each picking one member.

Current Outlook: The two parties either compromise as they did after 2010, or a court draws the congressional and legislative maps in case of a deadlock.

● Illinois

Number of Congressional Districts: 17 (-1 compared to 2010)

Partisan Control: Democratic

Partisan Intent: Likely Democratic (congressional); Democratic (legislative)

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor. If there's a deadlock, a bipartisan backup commission in place since a 1980 constitutional amendment would draw legislative districts (a court would draw the congressional map). The commission's tiebreaker is randomly chosen between nominees from each major party, giving both parties an even chance to gerrymander the legislature should the commission come into play.

Current Outlook: Democrats already enacted new legislative gerrymanders in order to meet the June 30, 2021 deadline, though their use of population estimates has already generated two lawsuits by Republicans and Latino voting advocates in response. Democrats are likely to wait to gerrymander the congressional map until census data becomes available. Deadlocks are exceedingly unlikely.

● Indiana

Number of Congressional Districts: 9

Partisan Control: Republican

Partisan Intent: Likely Republican

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor (veto override takes a simple majority). If there's a deadlock for congressional redistricting, mapmaking power would shift to a backup commission in place since at least 1969, controlled by whichever party controls two out of three of 1) the governor's office, 2) the state House, and 3) the state Senate (all three are controlled by Republicans); that commission is only statutory.

Current Outlook: Republicans gerrymander the congressional and legislative maps.

● Iowa

Number of Congressional Districts: 4

Partisan Control: Nonpartisan commission

Partisan Intent: Unclear; possibly neutral or Republican

Responsible Institution(s): By statute, Iowa's Legislative Services Agency (LSA), a nonpartisan advisory institution of civil servants, proposes congressional and legislative maps based on nonpartisan criteria, though these criteria do not include the use of partisan data to ensure fairness. The LSA works with a five-member bipartisan commission, with one member chosen by each of the four legislative majority and minority party leaders; those four commissioners then choose a fifth one. The LSA proposes plans to legislators, who may either approve or reject maps without the ability to alter them. If legislators reject the agency's proposals three times, they may draw their own maps.

Current Outlook: Iowa's nonpartisan redistricting system has operated without significant controversy every decade since it was first used following the 1980 census. However, Republicans haven't held full control of state government in a redistricting year since then, and this nonpartisan system is not mandated by the state constitution but rather is only set by statute. Republicans could therefore either reject the commission's proposed maps three times to draw their own gerrymanders, or they could even amend or repeal the statute entirely, the former of which they haven't ruled out doing.

● Kansas

Number of Congressional Districts: 4

Partisan Control: Republican

Partisan Intent: Likely Republican

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor

Current Outlook: Republicans, who hold two-thirds supermajorities in both chambers of the legislature, will likely be able to override Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly's likely vetoes. If Republicans unexpectedly fail to override a veto, a court would draw nonpartisan congressional and legislative maps.

● Kentucky

Number of Congressional Districts: 6

Partisan Control: Republican

Partisan Intent: Likely Republican

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor (veto override takes a simple majority)

Current Outlook: Republicans gerrymander the congressional and legislative maps.

● Louisiana

Number of Congressional Districts: 6

Partisan Control: Divided state government

Partisan Intent: Unclear; possibly neutral or Republican

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor

Current Outlook: Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards vetoes new Republican gerrymanders, but it's unclear whether Democrats can sustain his veto. There are 34 Democrats and three independents (who lean left on certain issues) in the state House, along with 68 Republicans. If the GOP maintains perfect unity, it needs to peel off two or more Democrats or independents in the House to override a veto (Republicans hold a veto-proof state Senate majority), which they could do by offering defectors a safe seat. If a veto is sustained, a court would draw nonpartisan congressional and legislative maps.

● Maine

Number of Congressional Districts: 2

Partisan Control: Divided state government

Partisan Intent: Likely neutral

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor, subject to a two-thirds supermajority requirement

Current Outlook: Democrats lack two-thirds majorities in the legislature, so lawmakers will either compromise and pass relatively nonpartisan congressional and legislative maps, or a court will draw nonpartisan maps.

● Maryland

Number of Congressional Districts: 8

Partisan Control: Democratic

Partisan Intent: Likely Democratic

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor. Under the state constitution, congressional redistricting is handled as typical legislation subject to a gubernatorial veto.

For legislative redistricting, the governor proposes a map to legislators at the start of the legislative session. If legislators don't act within 45 days, the governor's map becomes law; otherwise legislators may pass their own legislative maps without the possibility of a veto.

Current Outlook: Democrats use their veto-proof majorities to circumvent Republican Gov. Larry Hogan and gerrymander both the congressional and legislative maps.

● Massachusetts

Number of Congressional Districts: 9

Partisan Control: Democratic

Partisan Intent: Likely Democratic

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor

Current Outlook: Democrats use their veto-proof majorities to circumvent Republican Gov. Charlie Baker and gerrymander both the congressional and state legislative maps.

● Michigan

Number of Congressional Districts: 13 (-1 compared to 2010)

Partisan Control: Nonpartisan commission

Partisan Intent: Likely neutral

Responsible Institution(s): Independent redistricting commission created by a 2018 amendment to the state constitution, consisting of four Democrats, four Republicans, and five unaffiliated members.

The secretary of state solicits applications to serve on the commission, reviews them, and prepares demographically and geographically representative random samples of 30 for each major party and 40 for the unaffiliated applicants. Each of the four legislative majority and minority leaders may remove five applicants from each pool, but they are not able to select members directly. Once they make their objections, the secretary of state randomly picks from the remainder.

Michigan's commission requires that at least two commissioners from each group agree to pass any map. Any maps must meet specific criteria, including: compliance with the Voting Rights Act; geographic contiguity; preserving communities of interest; partisan fairness; not favoring or disfavoring a particular candidate or incumbent; keeping counties, cities, and townships whole; and compactness.

Current Outlook: The commission draws fair congressional and state legislative maps. Like in Arizona and California, however, Michigan's independent commission could get invalidated by the Supreme Court. That would likely lead to an impasse between Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the Republican-held legislature, meaning courts would draw nonpartisan maps

● Minnesota

Number of Congressional Districts: 8

Partisan Control: Divided state government

Partisan Intent: Likely neutral

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor.

Current Outlook: Legislators compromise or deadlock, requiring a court to draw new congressional and legislative maps, which has happened for the last five decades thanks to divided government. However, without a fairness mandate, a court-drawn map won't necessarily be fair from a partisan perspective, thanks in part to the effects of white-flight segregation in the Minneapolis metropolitan area. This past decade's court-drawn maps were not designed to reflect the state's overall partisan balance and therefore gave Republicans a sizable advantage because of Minnesota's geography, which helped Republicans narrowly win the state Senate in 2020 and 2016 despite Democrats winning more votes.

● Mississippi

Number of Congressional Districts: 4

Partisan Control: Republican

Partisan Intent: Likely Republican

Responsible Institution(s): Congressional: state legislature and governor

Legislative: Legislature only (governor lacks veto power)

Current Outlook: Republicans gerrymander both the congressional and legislative maps.

● Missouri

Number of Congressional Districts: 8

Partisan Control: Republican (congressional only); neutral (legislative)

Partisan Intent: Likely Republican (congressional only); likely neutral (legislative)

Responsible Institution(s): Congressional: state legislature and governor

Legislative: Following a 2020 ballot measure that amended Missouri's constitution, two separate bipartisan commissions (one for state Senate and one for state House) appointed by legislative leaders with an equal number of appointees from both parties will draw the maps, with 70% support needed to pass new districts. If commissioners fail to pass new districts, the state Supreme Court would appoint a commission of six state appellate judges to draw the map.

Current Outlook: Missouri voters passed an initiative in 2018 to reform the state's longstanding bipartisan legislative redistricting commissions by requiring new maps be drawn that explicitly take partisan fairness into account, which would have helped negate the geographic penalty against Democrats exacerbated by white-flight racial segregation. However, Republicans successfully deceived voters into passing a disingenuous amendment in 2020 that guts this reform by making the fairness requirement toothless and promoting compactness instead to lock in the effects of suburban segregation.

Consequently, commissioners may have no choice but to draw legislative maps that give Republicans a significant advantage beyond their popular support on par with gerrymandered maps elsewhere. Republicans will get to gerrymander the congressional map unfettered.

● Montana

Number of Congressional Districts: 2 (+1 compared to 2010)

Partisan Control: Bipartisan commission

Partisan Intent: Likely neutral

Responsible Institution(s): A bipartisan commission created by a 1972 constitutional amendment, with one appointee each from the four legislative majority and minority party leaders, and a tiebreaker chosen by the state Supreme Court if the commissioners can't agree on one.

Current Outlook: Montana's commission draws relatively nonpartisan congressional and legislative maps.

● Nebraska

Number of Congressional Districts: 3

Partisan Control: Divided state government

Partisan Intent: Unclear; possibly neutral or Republican

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor

Current Outlook: Republicans narrowly lack the two-thirds supermajority needed to overcome a potential filibuster by Democratic legislators. However, Republicans could eliminate the filibuster rule with a simple majority, though they have yet to show much interest in doing so.

If Republicans can overcome a filibuster, possibly by cutting a deal with an individual Democrat or two, they could gerrymander the congressional and legislative maps. However, if they can't and Democrats hold firm, either the two parties would have to compromise or a court would draw nonpartisan districts.

● Nevada

Number of Congressional Districts: 4

Partisan Control: Democratic

Partisan Intent: Likely Democratic

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor

Current Outlook: Democrats gerrymander the congressional and legislative maps.

● New Hampshire

Number of Congressional Districts: 2

Partisan Control: Republican

Partisan Intent: Likely Republican

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor

Current Outlook: Republicans gerrymander the maps for Congress, the legislature, and New Hampshire's unusual Executive Council, which has veto power over executive and judicial appointments, pardons, and large contracts.

● New Jersey

Number of Congressional Districts: 12

Partisan Control: Bipartisan commission

Partisan Intent: Likely Democratic or neutral (congressional only); likely Democratic or Republican (legislative)

Responsible Institution(s): Congressional: A bipartisan commission created by a 1995 constitutional amendment, consisting of six Democrats, six Republicans, and a tiebreaking member

Legislative: A bipartisan commission created by a 1966 constitutional amendment, consisting of five Democrats, five Republicans, and a tiebreaker if needed

Congressional commissioners are appointed by the four legislative majority and minority party leaders and the two major-party state chairs, with a tiebreaker chosen by the state Supreme Court if the parties can't agree on one. The legislative commissioners are chosen by political party chairs, with a court-appointed tiebreaker only if needed.

Current Outlook: In past decades, the tiebreaker has effectively faced a choice of passing one party's gerrymander or the other's, although these maps weren't as extreme as they likely would have been if legislators had had free rein to draw their own lines.

After the two parties on the congressional redistricting commission couldn't decide on a tiebreaker, they each nominated a candidate for the state Supreme Court to pick from. In early August the court chose the Democratic backed nominee, former state Supreme Court Justice John Wallace. Consequently, the commission is likely to produce either a map that is favorable to Democrats or is more neutral rather than the current one that favors Republicans. The legislative commission has yet to select a tiebreaker.

Thanks to the delayed release of key census data, legislative redistricting was postponed to the 2023 election cycle, meaning the 2021 elections will be held using the 2011 map, for which the tiebreaker chose the Democrats' proposal.

● New Mexico

Number of Congressional Districts: 3

Partisan Control: Democratic

Partisan Intent: Likely Democratic

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor

Current Outlook: Democrats gerrymander the congressional and legislative maps, though it remains to be seen if a newly adopted bipartisan commission that is advisory in nature will lessen the degree to which Democrats gerrymander.

● New York

Number of Congressional Districts: 26 (-1 compared to 2010)

Partisan Control: Democratic

Partisan Intent: Likely Democratic

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor, with input from a new bipartisan advisory commission created by a 2014 constitutional amendment, with members chosen by legislative leaders and their appointees. However, expert interpretations differ as to what threshold lawmakers would need to reach in order to pass maps on a partisan basis (rather than those proposed by the commission), since the amendment's wording is ambiguous.

In the event that one party controls both legislative chambers, the amendment requires seven of 10 commissioners, including at least one appointed by each legislative leader, to approve sending a map to the legislature. If the commissioners fail to reach a consensus, the map with the most support is instead forwarded to legislators. A two-thirds supermajority is required for the legislature to pass any commission-proposed maps when one party controls both chambers. (In the event of divided legislative control, only simple majorities are needed.)

If lawmakers reject the commission's proposals twice, they may amend them and draw their own maps. In such a case, however, it is not clear whether legislators would need a two-thirds supermajority to do so or just a simple majority. Lawmakers are also limited by statute from changing more than 2% of the population in any district proposed by the commission, though this rule could be repealed.

Current Outlook: Democrats hold two-thirds supermajorities in both chambers, as well as the governorship. They have also placed a constitutional amendment on the ballot this November that would reduce the threshold for approving or overriding the commission's maps. The amendment would require only a simple majority, regardless of partisan control of the legislature, to approve maps passed by the commission. It would also take a 60% majority to approve maps if the commission fails to pass any. It's still not clear, however, what threshold would be necessary for lawmakers to pass their own maps if the legislature rejects the commission's maps twice.

Given Democrats' interest in lowering the thresholds, it's likely they will seek to assert greater partisan control over the mapmaking process. Even if the new amendment doesn't pass, though, they will still have the necessary supermajority to override the commission even under the most maximal interpretation of what the 2014 amendment requires (i.e., two-thirds).

● North Carolina

Number of Congressional Districts: 14 (+1 compared to 2010)

Partisan Control: Republican

Partisan Intent: Unclear; possibly Republican or neutral

Responsible Institution(s): Legislature (governor lacks veto power)

Current Outlook: Republican legislators gerrymander the congressional and legislative maps. However, it's possible the state Supreme Court (which has a Democratic majority) or a lower court will strike them down for violating the state constitution, following 2019's rulings against the GOP's 2017 legislative gerrymanders.

● North Dakota

Number of Congressional Districts: 1 at-large district

Partisan Control: Republican (legislative only)

Partisan Intent: Republican (legislative only)

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor.

Current Outlook: Republicans gerrymander the legislative maps.

● Ohio

Number of Congressional Districts: 15 (-1 compared to 2010)

Partisan Control: Republican

Partisan Intent: Likely Republican

Responsible Institution(s): Congressional: state legislature and governor, with a bipartisan backup commission created by legislators in a 2018 constitutional amendment, consisting of the governor, secretary of state, state auditor, and one appointee each by the four legislative majority and minority party leaders in case of legislative deadlock.

Legislative: Uses a similar commission structure, created by legislators in a 2015 constitutional amendment, without the legislature getting a vote on the maps.

Implementing maps for the whole decade requires bipartisan support, but the legislative majority party can pass a party-line congressional map that will be in effect for four years instead of 10. Whichever party holds a majority on the legislative redistricting commission can also pass a party-line map that will also be in effect for four years. (Such four-year maps can be passed repeatedly when a previous map expires, both for congressional maps and legislative maps.) Congressional criteria restrict how cities and counties can be divided and bar maps that "unduly favor" a party but don't explicitly require partisan fairness.

Current Outlook: Republicans will likely use their legislative and commission majorities to pass congressional and legislative gerrymanders that are only slightly more restrained than their current maps for four years. Alternately, they could pressure Democrats into passing 10-year maps by threatening to pass more extreme four-year gerrymanders if Democrats don't agree to somewhat more modest 10-year gerrymanders. Passing extreme gerrymanders every four years could in fact be the optimal strategy for Republicans because it would give them the chance to refine their gerrymanders every two elections instead of every five.

● Oklahoma

Number of Congressional Districts: 5

Partisan Control: Republican

Partisan Intent: Likely Republican (congressional); Republican (legislative)

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor. A backup commission created by legislators via a 2010 constitutional amendment, consisting of three Democrats and three Republicans appointed by the governor, state Senate leader, and state House leader, draws the legislative maps in case of a deadlock.

Current Outlook: Republicans have already passed new gerrymanders of the state legislature using population estimates, risking a lawsuit over the legality of using such data. Most Democrats voted for these new maps, possibly in return for individual Democrats getting favorable seats at the expense of their party overall. Republicans are also positioned to gerrymander the congressional map at a later date.

● Oregon

Number of Congressional Districts: 6 (+1 compared to 2010)

Partisan Control: Divided state government (congressional only); Democratic (legislative)

Partisan Intent: Likely neutral (congressional); likely Democratic (legislative)

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor. In the event of a deadlock, a court draws the congressional map but the secretary of state draws the legislative maps, subject to certain requirements, including that districts preserve the integrity of political jurisdictions.

Current Outlook: Legislators either compromise on the congressional map or a court draws it, but Democrats will be able to gerrymander the legislative maps. Since 2019, Oregon Republicans have repeatedly staged legislative walkouts to deny Democrats the two-thirds supermajority needed for a quorum.

Democrats struck a deal earlier this year in which they agreed to give up their majority on the state House redistricting committee and give the GOP veto power over congressional redistricting in exchange for Republicans agreeing to stop obstructing certain legislation, though Republicans still retain the ability to abuse the quorum requirement at any time. However, should Republicans block Democratic legislators from passing new legislative maps, Democratic Secretary of State Shemia Fagan would take over the process and possibly produce maps that would favor her party.

● Pennsylvania

Number of Congressional Districts: 17 (-1 compared to 2010)

Partisan Control: Divided state government (congressional) and bipartisan commission (legislative)

Partisan Intent: Likely neutral (congressional); possibly Democratic or neutral (legislative)

Responsible Institution(s): Congressional: state legislature and governor

Legislative: A bipartisan commission created by a 1968 constitutional amendment handles legislative redistricting, with the legislative majority and minority party leaders each choosing one commissioner. In the event of a commission deadlock, the state Supreme Court appoints a tiebreaking fifth member.

Current Outlook: For congressional redistricting, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf vetoes a new Republican gerrymander, and a court draws nonpartisan districts. For the legislative redistricting commission, Pennsylvania's Supreme Court, where Democrats hold a 5-2 majority, appointed former University of Pittsburgh chancellor Mark Nordenberg as tiebreaker.

However, it remains to be seen whether Nordenberg will be inclined to use the same partisan fairness criteria that the court implicitly adopted when it struck down the GOP's congressional gerrymander under the state constitution in 2018 and replaced it with a fairer map, or whether he will instead let Democrats try to gerrymander to obtain a partisan advantage as the GOP did when they controlled the court the prior two decades.

● Rhode Island

Number of Congressional Districts: 2

Partisan Control: Democratic

Partisan Intent: Likely Democratic

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor

Current Outlook: Democrats gerrymander the congressional and legislative maps.

● South Carolina

Number of Congressional Districts: 7

Partisan Control: Republican

Partisan Intent: Likely Republican

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor

Current Outlook: Republicans gerrymander the congressional and legislative maps.

● South Dakota

Number of Congressional Districts: 1

Partisan Control: Republican (legislative only)

Partisan Intent: Likely Republican (legislative only)

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor

Current Outlook: Republicans gerrymander the legislative maps.

● Tennessee

Number of Congressional Districts: 9

Partisan Control: Republican

Partisan Intent: Likely Republican

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor (veto override takes a simple majority)

Current Outlook: Republicans gerrymander the congressional and legislative maps.

● Texas

Number of Congressional Districts: 38 (+2 compared to 2010)

Partisan Control: Republican

Partisan Intent: Likely Republican

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor. In case of a deadlock for legislative redistricting only, a backup commission created by a 1948 constitutional amendment takes over. It consists of the lieutenant governor, state attorney general, comptroller, land commissioner, and state House speaker, all of whom are currently Republicans.

Current Outlook: Republicans gerrymander the congressional and legislative maps.

● Utah

Number of Congressional Districts: 4

Partisan Control: Republican

Partisan Intent: Likely Republican

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor, with assistance from a bipartisan advisory commission. Voters passed a 2018 ballot initiative creating the commission to minimize gerrymandering, but Republican lawmakers effectively gutted it by passing a law last year in response. The 2020 law repealed a requirement that maps must pass with the support of at least one member from the other party and weakened the nonpartisan criteria governing the drawing of such maps to eliminate a partisan fairness mandate. Republicans also weakened the ability of voters to sue in state court if legislators pass districts that violate those nonpartisan criteria.

The 2018 initiative created a commission consisting of six appointees from the four legislative majority and minority party leaders, three from each major party, and a chair appointed by the governor, giving Republicans a one-seat majority. Lawmakers can ultimately reject the commission's proposals and draw their own maps, nominally subject to nonpartisan criteria.

Current Outlook: Republicans gerrymander the congressional and legislative maps, with the commission and courts providing only modest constraints.

● Vermont

Number of Congressional Districts: 1

Partisan Control: Divided state government

Partisan Intent: Likely neutral

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor

Current Outlook: Democrats and their allies in the Progressive Party lost their collective two-thirds supermajority in the state House in 2020, which they needed to override Republican Gov. Phil Scott's vetoes and gerrymander the legislature. Left-leaning independents now hold the balance of power for veto overrides in the state House, so it's unlikely that the governing coalition will be able to pass overtly partisan gerrymanders. (Democrats have a supermajority on their own in the state Senate.)

However, given Vermont's penchant for rejecting sharp-edged partisan politics common just about everywhere else, it's possible Democrats would not even be interested in attempting to pass a gerrymanders over a Scott veto. In fact, after 2010, Democrats passed new maps with wide GOP support, so something similar may happen after 2020.

● Virginia

Number of Congressional Districts: 11

Partisan Control: Bipartisan commission

Partisan Intent: Likely neutral

Responsible Institution(s): Bipartisan commission created by a 2020 constitutional amendment, with the commission consisting of 16 members evenly divided between the two major parties. Half of the commission consists of legislators while the other half are citizen members chosen by retired judges. The commission's maps must be approved by the state legislature and governor to take effect, but lawmakers cannot amend them or draw their own. An additional statute adds nonpartisan criteria, including a ban on maps that intentionally and unfairly favor a party or candidate. If commissioners and lawmakers fail to agree on new districts, the state Supreme Court will take over and draw them.

Current Outlook: Commissioners likely either compromise and draw maps that modestly gerrymander in favor of incumbents from both parties, or deadlock and send the process to court. Some Democrats are concerned that the conservative-dominated state Supreme Court will draw stealth GOP gerrymanders if given the chance. However, the court would still be bound by the same nonpartisan criteria that commissioners are.

● Washington

Number of Congressional Districts: 10

Partisan Control: Bipartisan commission

Partisan Intent: Likely neutral

Responsible Institution(s): Bipartisan commission created by a 1982 constitutional amendment, consisting of one appointee made by each of the four legislative majority and minority party members. There is no tiebreaking member, so a deadlock would lead to a court drawing the maps. The commission submits its maps for legislative approval, and the legislature can only amend the proposals with two-thirds supermajorities. Current statute limits any amendments to altering 2% or less of a proposed district's population.

Current Outlook: Commissioners likely engage in modest bipartisan gerrymandering to protect incumbents from both parties.

● West Virginia

Number of Congressional Districts: 2 (-1 compared to 2010)

Partisan Control: Republican

Partisan Intent: Likely Republican

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor (veto override takes a simple majority)

Current Outlook: Republicans gerrymander the congressional and legislative maps.

● Wisconsin

Number of Congressional Districts: 8

Partisan Control: Divided state government

Partisan Intent: Unclear; possibly neutral or Republican

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor

Current Outlook: One possibility is that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoes new Republican gerrymanders, and a court draws nonpartisan congressional and legislative maps. However, Republicans are reportedly planning to ask their 4-3 conservative majority on the state Supreme Court to strip Evers of his power to veto redistricting, and it's unclear whether the justices are inclined to go along with such a scheme. Republicans have additionally been maneuvering to ensure that Wisconsin's Supreme Court would be the one to draw the maps in the event of a deadlock rather than a lower state court or a federal court.

● Wyoming

Number of Congressional Districts: 1 at-large district

Partisan Control: Republican (legislative only)

Partisan Intent: Likely Republican (legislative only)

Responsible Institution(s): State legislature and governor.

Current Outlook: Republicans gerrymander the legislative maps.

On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court's conservatives ruled 6-3 along ideological lines to strike a historic blow against the Voting Rights Act and overturn a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that had found that two voting laws passed by Arizona Republicans had both the effect and intent of discriminating against Black, Latino, and Native American voters. The ruling reversed the findings of intentional discrimination and will make it much harder to block laws that have a discriminatory effect on voters of color, bringing America one major step closer to reviving the legal regime of Jim Crow.

Consequently, the Supreme Court's ruling significantly increased the level of discriminatory effects that must be demonstrated for a voting law or procedure to violate the Voting Rights Act, opening the floodgates to a new national wave of Republican voter suppression laws that hide their racist intent but have clearly disparate effects based on race.

Last year, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked both GOP-supported measures: one that bars counting votes cast in the wrong precinct but in the right county, and another that limits who can turn in another person's absentee mail ballot on a voter's behalf.

Arizona had largely transitioned to mail voting even before the pandemic, but the 9th Circuit observed that only 18% of Native American voters receive mail service, and many living on remote reservations lack reliable transportation options. That led some voters to ask others in their community to turn their completed ballots in, which Republicans have sought to deride as "ballot harvesting" in an attempt to delegitimize the practice. The invalidated law had limited who could handle another person's mail ballot to just close relatives, caregivers, or postal service workers.

The 9th Circuit's ruling also invalidated a separate provision prohibiting out-of-precinct voting, in which a voter shows up and casts a ballot at the wrong polling place but in the right county on Election Day. Under the invalidated law, voters in such circumstances could only cast a provisional ballot, which were automatically rejected if it was later confirmed that the voter had indeed showed up at the wrong polling place.

The appellate court decision relied on Section Two of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits laws that have a discriminatory effect against racial minorities regardless of whether there was an intent to discriminate. The finding of a discriminatory effect is critical because it's often much more difficult if not impossible to prove that lawmakers acted with illicit intent, whereas statistical analysis can more readily prove that a law has a disparate negative impact on protected racial groups.

It's this so-called "effects test" that is the key remaining plank of the Voting Rights Act following the Supreme Court's notorious 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which invalidated a requirement that many jurisdictions with a history of discriminatory voting laws had to obtain Justice Department approval to make any changes to voting. Some legal observers had warned before this latest decision that even if the effects test weren't formally struck down, the Supreme Court could make it so difficult to comply with the requirements to prove discrimination that the VRA would nevertheless become meaningless.

While the court did not strike down the rest of the foundation Voting Rights Act and deliver the worst-case scenario of ruling Section Two itself unconstitutional, their decision is still devastating to voting rights and could render what's left of the VRA dead in the water.

Between 20 years of frequent Republican minority rule in the presidency, Senate, House, and state legislatures, along with several Supreme Court decisions since 2013 dismantling most of the Voting Rights Act and protecting partisan gerrymandering, the liberal democracy that only came to America in 1965 with the VRA's passage has truly ceased to exist and given way to what experts call "competitive authoritarianism."

Elections still take place with all the trappings of democracy, but they are not truly free and fair. And when the oppressed party is nevertheless able to miraculously win control of the government, they are so overly constrained by unfair institutions such as courts stacked with partisans that they are unable to effectively enact their agenda, much like congressional Democrats are struggling to do right now.

If Democrats are serious about restoring a truly equitable, multi-racial democracy, the ball is entirely in Congress' court. Democrats have what may be their last, best chance before they could lose Congress next year. That entails passing a new Voting Rights Act; the For the People Act with its sweeping expansion of voting protections and ban on congressional gerrymandering; adding new states such as Washington, D.C. to end the disenfranchisement of American citizens and help rebalance the Senate to put an end to two decades of near-constant GOP minority rule; and expanding the Supreme Court itself.

To pass these reforms, Democratic holdouts such as Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema must first stop clinging to the filibuster and either curtail or eliminate it, but it so far appears doubtful whether they will.

Five years ago, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled 4-3 along party lines to block a Republican-backed effort to place a redistricting initiative on the ballot that would have, counterintuitively, undermined the cause of fair representation in the Prairie State. But little-noticed elections taking place next year could hand Republicans a majority on the court for the first time in decades that would allow them to greenlight a similar effort. Such a move would open the door to distorted maps under the guise of promoting fairness—and could even allow Republicans to seize control of the legislature despite the state's deep blue lean.

Illinois is one of just a handful of states where Democrats will have full control over the redistricting process following the 2020 census, just as they did a decade earlier. However, thanks in large part to a decades-long history of racist redlining and white flight segregation in Chicago that has left voters of color heavily concentrated in urban areas, Democrats face a "geography penalty" that would leave them at a disadvantage even if the state utilized ostensibly nonpartisan maps.

There's no question that the districts Democrats drew 10 years ago were gerrymandered—lawmakers didn't try to hide their intent. But because of this geography bias, these gerrymanders did not in fact lock in a Democratic advantage in excess of the party's popular support.

One simple way to test this is to compare the political performance of the median district with that of the state as a whole; in Illinois, the median in the state House was three points to the right of the state overall in 2016, while for the Senate it was identical and for Congress, it was just one point to the left. (In neighboring Wisconsin, by contrast, the median districts in GOP-drawn maps were nine to 12 points redder than the state.)

Partisan gerrymandering is by no means the only way to counteract a geography penalty. An independent commission could, in particular, be instructed to consider the fairness of partisan outcomes when drawing new maps. But if Republicans take control of the Illinois Supreme Court, they could let conservative activists deploy a ballot initiative that omits such a requirement and even exacerbates the GOP's geography advantage by prioritizing "compact" districts.

Such an effort could even lock in minority rule in Illinois. Democrats, however, have the opportunity to prevent this scenario by reforming the way state Supreme Court justices are elected, ensuring greater fairness for both the court itself and, by extension, the redistricting process overall.

Illinois is one of just four states, along with Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi, that elects Supreme Court justices by districts rather than statewide. Unlike with legislative districts, however, federal courts do not require judicial districts to have equal population—the thinking being that judges aren't representative officials.

That doesn't mean they're fair, though, particularly since Illinois' districts haven't been redrawn for over half a century. As a result, they've become so badly disproportional that the largest of the single-member districts, the 2nd, is home to more people than the two smallest—the 4th and 5th—combined, as shown in the map below (see here for a larger version). Unsurprisingly, this distortion has benefited more rural areas in the southern part of the state at the expense of voters in the Democratic-leaning Chicago suburbs.

Thanks to this district-level distortion, Republicans could take control of the Supreme Court in next year's elections, even though Illinois is a solidly blue state that voted 57-40 for Joe Biden last year. Four seats on the court are up in 2022, and both the 2nd and 3rd Districts could host competitive elections. (Incumbent justices—one Democrat and one Republican—should be heavily favored in the 1st and 4th Districts, respectively.)

This means that if a recently appointed Republican justice holds his seat in the 2nd, and if the GOP can flip a Democratic open seat in the 3rd, they'll transform the court's current 4-3 Democratic majority into a 4-3 Republican advantage. And that advantage would last for a full decade, because justice serve 10-year terms, and the only other Republican isn't up for reelection until 2030 and holds a solidly red seat anyway.

Normally those elections are what's known as "retention" elections—that is, voters simply say whether they want to keep an incumbent in office, yea or nay. To keep their job, a judge must earn 60% of the vote, though that's always been a foregone conclusion.

That was, until last year, when Democratic Justice Thomas Kilbride in the conservative-leaning (and underpopulated) 3rd District failed to win the supermajority he needed to earn another term. That made Kilbride the first Supreme Court justice since retention elections were adopted in 1964 to lose such an election.

It also set up a traditional partisan election next year in his district, which voted for Donald Trump 51-47. Kilbride's replacement, Democratic Justice Robert Carter, isn't seeking a full term, creating an open seat that Republicans have a strong chance to pick up. Meanwhile, the neighboring 2nd District, which backed Joe Biden by 55-43, will also hold a partisan election because appointed Republican Justice Michael Burke is seeking his first full term. If next year resembles a traditional midterm that disfavors the party in control of the White House, Burke could win despite the district's lean.

Together, these two districts will determine who controls the court, and if Republicans take a majority, they could authorize the very sort of ballot initiative the court rejected in 2016—one that could penalize Democrats and voters of color based solely on where they live, due to a legacy of racism of which they're the victims.

Some top Republicans appear to already be taking notice of how high the stakes are. Politico recently reported that GOP Rep. Darin LaHood could be interested in running for the critical 3rd District next year, which would given his party a much more prominent candidate than judicial races typically attract. (In an ironic twist, Democrats themselves could wind up giving LaHood more motivation to run if they try to make his congressional district bluer or combine him with another Republican.)

Should Republicans get their way and succeed in revamping the redistricting process, it's easy to illustrate just how damaging districts that prioritize compactness and other nonpartisan criteria while ignoring fairness could be. The map below (see here for a larger version) is a hypothetical example of just such an approach.

While these seemingly "clean" lines might look pleasing to the naked eye, the patterns they hold are troubling. Daily Kos Elections has calculated key demographic and election result statistics for these districts, which show that during the prior decade, no fewer than four different Democratic candidates for statewide office won their races but lost a majority of districts under this map—an outcome directly at odds with the fundamental notion in a two-party system that the party that wins the most votes should also win the most seats.

Sen. Dick Durbin's successful reelection in 2014 best showcases this distortion: Despite his wide 54-43 margin, he would have carried only eight districts while his Republican opponent would have won 10. In fact, Durbin would have lost the median district in this scenario 50-46, putting it almost 15 points to the right of his statewide win.

With a headwind like that, Democratic candidates for the House would have been hard-pressed, and Republicans could have wound up controlling a majority of the delegation. The same thing would be eminently possible under a future map like this one (albeit with 17 districts, since Illinois is losing one seat due to reapportionment), and not just for Congress but for the legislature as well.

But Democratic lawmakers can go a long way toward ensuring fairer congressional and legislative maps if they simply redraw the long-neglected judicial map—something they are entirely empowered to do. And there's no need to gerrymander the lines: A nonpartisan approach that simply equalizes populations across districts would improve matters greatly.

The map below (see here for a larger version) features one such proposal. It converts the 3rd District from a hodgepodge of disparate communities that sprawls across the state into a more cohesive district concentrated in the Chicago suburbs. Not only would its population be far closer to the ideal, this revised district would have favored Biden by a 54-44 margin rather than backing Trump.

This new 3rd District would reduce the chance that Republicans could gain a majority on the bench, but even this map would still give the GOP a large advantage when looking at the median seat—just not as gargantuan as under the current disproportional map. For instance, in the 2014 Senate election, which Democrat Dick Durbin won 53-43, Republicans would nonetheless have won a majority of Supreme Court seats.

Consequently, more extensive long-term solutions are needed that go beyond merely redrawing these court districts. The wisest move would be to end judicial elections entirely in favor of a more merit-based appointment method like those that other states have created to insulate judges from the pressures of partisan politics. That, however, would require a constitutional amendment that involves a three-fifths vote in both legislative chambers followed by a statewide referendum, whereas simply redrawing the districts to equalize their populations would go through the ordinary legislative process.

By the same token, Illinois Democrats could also put in place an independent redistricting commission with a mandate to produce congressional and legislative maps that ensure fair outcomes from a partisan perspective, short-circuiting any conservative attempt to pass a reform-in-name-only at the ballot box. The political hurdles to implement such an overhaul would be immense, however. Drafting a new judicial map would be far easier—but the window to do so won't remain open for long.

After winning total control over state government in 2020 for the first time in 16 years, Montana Republicans have orchestrated an all-out assault on voting rights, democracy, and the rule of law that culminated in late April with GOP legislators voting to put a statutory measure on the November 2022 ballot that would effectively gerrymander Montana's Supreme Court to cement a future GOP majority if approved by voters next year.

The GOP's bill would replace the current system of using statewide elections to elect Supreme Court justices with using districts drawn by GOP legislators and redistricted by lawmakers every 10 years thereafter. According to calculations by Daily Kos Elections, the GOP's proposed 2020s court districts could have seen Republican candidates lose the statewide vote by 7 points yet still carry a majority of seats last year. Republicans would thus likely be favored in a 5-2 majority of seats, whereas the court currently lacks a secure majority for either party and has seen the all-important swing justices side with Democrats in some recent major cases.

Republicans' attempt to gerrymander the state Supreme Court is especially notable because GOP lawmakers have also recently passed new voting restriction laws that immediately sparked a Democratic lawsuit arguing that they violate Montana's constitution, which the justices could eventually decide. The GOP's newly adopted laws include two that eliminated Election Day voter registration and adopted stricter voter ID requirements that limit student IDs in particular, while the GOP passed a third measure in the legislature in the final week of April that would revive a restriction on who may turn in someone else's mail ballot, something a court had struck down last year for discriminating against Native American voters.

Gerrymandering isn't the only tool that Republicans are using to try to take over the courts in Montana, and Republicans also recently passed a law that eliminated Montana's judicial nominating commission to give GOP Gov. Greg Gianforte free rein to appoint more partisan judges directly to the bench instead of having to choose from a list of potential nominees that commissioners screened based on supposed merit. The eliminated process was supposed to insulate the courts from the pressures of partisan politics, and its repeal has also drawn a lawsuit.

After heavily targeting voters and the judicial branch, Montana Republicans turned their sights to the legislative branches on Tuesday when they rushed a separate bill through the legislature to impose additional criteria on Montana's bipartisan redistricting commission, prioritizing criteria that favor Republicans such as compactness over other factors that don't and prohibiting commissioners from intentionally using partisan data to ensure fairness. Just like all of the above power grabs Republicans that have advanced, this bill too is likely to face a lawsuit as soon as Gianforte signs it, since the commission was created by a 1972 constitutional amendment and previous GOP attempts to shackle it by statute have been struck down.

Completing the GOP's attempts to entrench their power over the legislative and judicial branches and by limiting the electorate, Republicans lastly passed legislation for Gianforte to sign that aims to ward off future progressive ballot measures. That bill bans citizens from using ballot initiatives to expand eligibility for government programs after voters narrowly failed to pass a measure to expand Medicaid in 2018 and prohibits initiatives from appropriating revenue anywhere besides the state's general fund after a voter-approved 2020 marijuana legalization measure dedicated the resulting tax revenue to land conservation efforts.

The ballot measure restrictions would also insert warnings on the petitions that voters must sign to qualify initiatives for the ballot whenever the proposal would supposedly hurt businesses. The bill would grant lawmakers the power to vote on whether or not they approve of proposed ballot initiatives before supporters could begin gathering signatures, the results of which votes would also be included on petition-signature forms, meaning the GOP legislature would be able to put its thumb on the scale in ways that initiative proponents simply couldn't.

Next month's elections are the last that will take place before states are required to redraw their congressional and state legislative districts to reflect population changes in the 2020 census. That makes them critical in the fight against gerrymandering. Below, we'll look at key elections for governor, state legislature, and ballot measures in the states that could change who's in charge of the redistricting process for the coming decade, and be sure to bookmark the spreadsheet version of this info since we'll update it as results come in.

As things stand, Republicans would get to draw three to four times as many congressional districts as Democrats if nothing changes in 2020, and the picture is similar for state legislative maps. But Democrats are well-positioned to flip a number of key races that would break GOP's control over redistricting in important swing states like Texas, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania and help level the playing field.

Note that seat counts for state legislative chambers count third parties or independents with the major party they lean toward if any, and totals are based on the last party that held any vacant seats.

ARIZONA

• Governor: Republican (up in 2022)
• State Senate: Republican (17 R, 13 D)
• State House: Republican (31 R, 29 D)

Arizona has had an independent redistricting commission in place since 2000, but there's a significant risk that the Supreme Court will strike down all commissions that were passed by citizen-initiated ballot measures, especially if Judge Amy Coney Barrett joins the court. Republicans control the governorship, but Democrats have an excellent shot at flipping one or both chambers this year.

That would lead to a divided government in case the commission gets struck down, meaning that, barring a bipartisan compromise, new maps would likely be drawn by the courts, which habitually favor nonpartisan districts. Republicans in the legislature have also repeatedly sought to undermine the commission, so ending the GOP's control of state government would help insulate the panel.

CONNECTICUT

• Governor: Democratic (up in 2022)
• State Senate: Democratic (22 D, 14 R)
• State House: Democratic (91 D, 60 R)

Connecticut requires supermajorities to pass new maps, so Democrats would need to win two-thirds of all seats in the legislature to gain control over redistricting. It's a reach, but isn't totally implausible with Donald Trump weighing down the GOP ticket. If Democrats don't do so, it would take bipartisan support to drew new lines, otherwise the courts would get involved.

FLORIDA

• Governor: Republican (up in 2022)
• State Senate: Republican (23 R, 17 D; half of seats up)
• State House: Republican (73 R, 47 D)

Florida voters passed two ballot initiatives in 2010 to try to ban gerrymandering, but the state Supreme Court has taken a lurch far to the right after Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis won in 2018 and is unlikely to enforce the amendments to curb GOP gerrymandering. However, if Democrats pull off an upset and flip either chamber, they could force a deadlock, requiring a court to step in to craft new maps in the absence of the two parties working out a deal.

GEORGIA

• Governor: Republican (up in 2022)
• State Senate: Republican (35 R, 21 D)
• State House: Republican (106 R, 74 D)

Georgia Democrats would have to flip the state House to break the GOP's full control of state government, but that's a daunting task since the chamber is already heavily gerrymandered to benefit the GOP and the state Senate is even worse. However, a Democratic House majority can't be ruled out if 2020 turns into a true blue tsunami in the Atlanta suburbs. If that happens, redistricting would get handed to the courts unless both sides negotiate an agreement.

IOWA

• Governor: Republican (up in 2022)
• State Senate: Republican (32 R, 18 D; half of seats up)
• State House: Republican (53 R, 47 D)

A nonpartisan agency has for decades proposed maps to the Iowa legislature, which has always adopted them. However, if Republicans remain in power following the November elections, next year would be the first time in several decades under this system that one party has unified control over state government, which would allow the GOP to simply reject the agency's proposals and implement their own gerrymanders. But Democrats have a realistic chance of capturing the state House next month. In that case, lawmakers would be likely to once again accept the agency's maps.

KANSAS

• Governor: Democratic (up in 2022)
• State Senate: Republican (29 R, 11 D)
• State House: Republican (84 R, 41 D)

Democrats need to flip just a single state House seat or three state Senate seats to break the GOP's nominally veto-proof majorities. That would allow them uphold Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly's vetoes, including of a possible gerrymander that the Republican Senate leader was recently caught on tape vowing to fight for. Republicans have been running well behind their normal showing in Kansas polling this year, so Democrats may even be favored to break the GOP's supermajorities. If that happens, redistricting would be very likely to fall to the courts.

MICHIGAN

• Governor: Democratic (up in 2022)
• State Senate: Republican (22 R, 16 D)
• State House: Republican (58 R, 52 D)

Like Arizona, Michigan also has an independent redistricting commission, but while it's new for the 2020 cycle, it too could get invalidated by the Supreme Court. Even if it survives, though, litigation over the eventual maps the commission produces is likely, which is why it's critical for Democrats that they flip the state Supreme Court next month. If Chief Justice Bridget Mary McCormack and attorney Elizabeth Welch prevail in these nominally nonpartisan elections, Democrats would turn the GOP's 4-3 advantage into a 4-3 majority of their own.

Michigan Democrats also have a good chance to overcome one of the most persistent GOP gerrymanders in the nation and finally regain the state House (the state Senate is not up until 2022).

MINNESOTA

• Governor: Democratic (up in 2022)
• State Senate: Republican (35 R, 32 D)
• State House: Democratic (75 D, 59 R)

Democrats have an excellent opportunity to flip the two net seats needed to regain control of the state Senate while holding onto their newly won state House majority, which would give one party full control over redistricting in Minnesota for the first time in the modern era. That could make it one of the rare states that Democrats could gerrymander, although as we saw in Virginia earlier this year (see our item on the state below), there's no guarantee they'd do so, especially since some of the party's candidates this year are running on a platform of redistricting reform.

MISSOURI

• Governor: Republican
• State Senate: Republican (24 R, 10 D; half of seats up)
• State House: Republican (116 R, 47 D)

Missouri voters passed an initiative in 2018 to reform the existing bipartisan legislative redistricting commission by adding a nonpartisan expert to propose maps to lawmakers using an explicit partisan fairness formula, but Republicans have placed a deceptive measure called Amendment 3 on the ballot that would gut this reform. To keep this commission in place under the revised rules, voters will have to defeat the GOP's amendment.

Congressional redistricting, meanwhile, is still handled by the legislature and governor. To block a GOP gerrymander, Democrat Nicole Galloway would have to pull off an upset victory against Republican Gov. Mike Parson. Democrats would also have to overcome hostile districts to break the GOP's veto-proof two-thirds majority in at least one chamber of the legislature. Should both of these things happen, a court-drawn congressional map would be likely.

NEBRASKA

• Governor: Republican (up in 2022)
• State Senate: Republican (30 R, 19 D; half of seats up)

Republicans control Nebraska's unicameral and nominally nonpartisan legislature, but they lack the two-thirds supermajority needed to overcome a filibuster of any new gerrymanders unless they gain three seats, an unlikely outcome with the districts that were last up in Trump's 2016 romp. The GOP could also eliminate the filibuster with a simple majority, but it's far from clear that enough Republican lawmakers are willing to make that move. If the status quo prevails, new maps would be handled by the courts.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

• Governor: Republican
• State Senate: Democratic (14 D, 10 R)
• State House: Democratic (234 D, 166 R)

The most likely outcome according to the polls is that Democrats retain their legislative majorities in New Hampshire while Republican Gov. Chris Sununu wins another term and maintains the ability to veto Democratic-drawn districts. However, it's possible that Sununu could still lose to Democrat Dan Feltes if the bottom truly falls out for the GOP, which would allow Democrats to pass their own maps.

NEW JERSEY

• Governor: Democratic (up in 2021)
• State Senate: Democratic (25 D, 15 R; up in 2021)
• State House: Democratic (52 D, 28 R; up in 2021)

New Jersey's Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy and the heavily Democratic legislature don't face the voters again until 2021, after legislative redistricting is supposed to take place. However, if Democratic legislators get their way, redistricting would be pushed back to the 2023 election cycle if voters pass Question 3 and the census doesn't provide the data lawmakers need by Feb. 15. Delaying redistricting two more years would further disadvantage the state's growing Asian and Latino populations, likely to the benefit of white Democratic incumbents in primaries.

No matter which year New Jersey conducts its redistricting, the process will see two bipartisan commissions (one for Congress and one for the legislature) appointed by a combination of legislative leaders and state party leaders calling the shots, so Democrats won't have the chance to adopt extreme partisan maps regardless of how 2020 turns out.

NEW YORK

• Governor: Democratic (up in 2022)
• State Senate: Democratic (40 D, 23 R)
• State Assembly: Democratic (107 D, 43 R)

New York has a bipartisan redistricting commission appointed by lawmakers, but legislators could override the commission's recommendations and pass maps to their own liking if they have a two-thirds supermajority. Democrats are just two seats shy of the two-thirds mark in the state Senate and are likely to maintain their supermajority in the Assembly.

However, many Democratic lawmakers in New York have often been all too happy to ignore their party's broader interests if it means getting a seat that's safe from a primary challenger. It's therefore unclear whether Democrats would even be able to pass aggressive partisan gerrymanders even if they were to win supermajorities.

NORTH CAROLINA

• Governor: Democratic
• State Senate: Republican (29 R, 21 D)
• State House: Republican (65 R, 55 D)

North Carolina has seen the worst and most pervasive Republican gerrymandering of any state in modern history, and those battles are likely to continue if Republicans keep control of the legislature this year, since Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper is unable to veto most redistricting bills. However, Democrats have a chance to solidify their 6-1 majority on the state Supreme Court and could even sweep the court if they win all three seats up this year.

State courts curtailed the GOP's gerrymanders last year, but while those court rulings curbed the worst excesses of Republican gerrymandering, they didn't entirely eliminate the problem, and judicial review is not guaranteed to succeed again given the increasingly radical proceduralism by the U.S. Supreme Court. Fortunately, Democrats have a very real chance to flip the state House and possibly even the state Senate this year despite the flawed maps.

OHIO

• Governor: Republican (up in 2022)
• State Senate: Republican (24 R, 9 D; half of seats up)
• State House: Republican (61 R, 38 D)

Ohio's legislature is almost hopelessly gerrymandered by Republicans, but if Democrats Jennifer Brunner and John O'Donnell oust both GOP incumbents up for election to the state Supreme Court, Democrats would gain a 4-3 majority on the bench. Such a majority could mean the difference between actually enforcing the protections added to Ohio's constitution in a 2018 bipartisan deal to reform congressional redistricting, or whether those provisions remain toothless, as Republicans intended them to be.

OREGON

• Governor: Democratic (up in 2022)
• State Senate: Democratic (18 D, 12 R; half of seats up)
• State House: Democratic (38 D, 22 R)

In 2019, Oregon Republicans repeatedly fled the state to deny Democrats the two-thirds legislative supermajority needed for a quorum to conduct any business, successfully defeating a Democratic bill to enact climate protections. They're likely to repeat that move with redistricting next year if GOP state Sen. Kim Thatcher beats Democratic state Sen. Shemia Fagan for the open secretary of state's office, because if lawmakers don't pass new legislative districts by July 1, 2021, the secretary of state takes over the process,

Consequently, the secretary of state's office could be winner-take-all for either party, since Democrats have a firm grip on the legislative majority. If, however, the GOP once more succeeds at quorum-busting, a court would draw the congressional map barring a compromise. Democrats, though, have an uphill shot at gaining two-thirds control of the legislature outright if they gain two seats in each chamber, which would give them complete control over redistricting regardless of the secretary of state race.

PENNSYLVANIA

• Governor: Democratic (up in 2022)
• State Senate: Republican (29 R, 21 D; half of seats up)
• State House: Republican (110 R, 93 D)

Like North Carolina, Pennsylvania's Supreme Court has a Democratic majority that, in 2018, issued a ruling striking down the GOP's congressional gerrymander. However, there's no guarantee that the court would draw another fair map after 2020 even if Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf once again blocks Republican legislators from passing an extreme gerrymander, especially if the U.S. Supreme Court interferes. Democrats have a plausible chance at flipping the state House next month and long-shot odds of flipping the state Senate. Even if they flip only one chamber, however, breaking the GOP's hold on the legislature could strengthen Democrats' hand in court or in negotiations on a compromise.

Since the state Supreme Court determines the majority tiebreaker on the bipartisan commission used for legislative redistricting, a Republican effort to pass a constitutional amendment that would effectively gerrymander the court could be even more consequential. The GOP passed their amendment earlier this year and would need to pass it again after 2020 before voters weigh in via a 2021 referendum, but a Democratic state House could stop that power grab dead in its tracks.

TEXAS

• Governor: Republican (up in 2022)
• State Senate: Republican (19 R, 12 D; half of seats up)
• State House: Republican (83 R, 67 D)

The most important state for Republican congressional gerrymandering is Texas, and thanks to a gerrymander that overreached earlier this decade and failed to anticipate how Donald Trump would repulse once-reliable GOP voters, Democrats have a legitimately good chance of taking a majority in the state House. Indeed, Democrat Beto O'Rourke won a majority of seats in 2018 despite losing 51-48 overall to Ted Cruz.

A Democratic majority would break the GOP's full hold over congressional redistricting, likely prompting a court to draw the map, although Republicans would still retain control over legislative redistricting regardless thanks to a "backup commission" dominated by GOP officeholders. Nonetheless, a nonpartisan congressional map could mean several more Democratic seats (and greater Latino representation) following the 2022 elections, and could potentially determine control of the U.S. House that year.

While 2020's elections won't stop Republican gerrymandering at the legislative level, they could lay the groundwork for doing so in just a few years. That's because four of the nine seats on Texas' all-Republican Supreme Court are up this November, and if Democrats flip at least a few of those seats, they could take over the court as soon as the 2022 or 2024 elections and curb gerrymandering, as courts have done elsewhere in recent years.

VERMONT

• Governor: Republican
• State Senate: Democratic (24 D/I, 6 R)
• State House: Democratic (107 D/I, 43 R)

Democrats and their third-party allies hold the two-thirds supermajorities needed to override popular Republican Gov. Phil Scott's vetoes and gerrymander the legislature (Vermont only has a single statewide congressional district), but it's far from a given that they would even do so given the state's penchant for rejecting the sharpest sort of partisan politics common just about everywhere else. After 2010, the Democratic-dominated state government passed new maps with wide GOP support, so something similar could happen in after 2020 in the likely event Scott wins re-election.

VIRGINIA

• Governor: Democratic (up in 2021)
• State Senate: Democratic (21 D, 19 R; up in 2023)
• State House: Democratic (55 D, 45 R; up in 2021)

In a groundbreaking move, the new Democratic majority in Virginia's legislature agreed to hold votes earlier this year on a GOP-backed reform to enact a bipartisan redistricting commission. The amendment was a compromise that passed with widespread Democratic support in the state Senate but almost unanimous Democratic opposition in the state House. While the measure is not without its own flaws, it should help ensure that Virginia districts that are by and large nonpartisan following the 2020 census if it passes. The amendment is likely to pass, but not without a fight by some Democratic-aligned groups.

One common refrain this year amid Trump's unprecedented assault on free and fair elections is that democracy itself is on the ballot. That's literally the case in many cities and states across the country, with voters set to decide on dozens of ballot measures that will determine who can vote and how elections will work for years to come.

Daily Kos Elections has compiled a spreadsheet that catalogs 24 different measures on a variety of topics related to elections, some placed on the ballot by voters and some by state lawmakers. Below we'll explore some of the most important measures and whether they could have a positive or negative impact on fair elections going forward. 2020 was poised to be another big year for initiatives to expand voting rights and fight largely Republican gerrymandering after reformers successfully passed measures to overcome hostile GOP legislatures in Michigan and elsewhere in 2018. However, after the pandemic hit, courts around the country issued rulings hostile to direct democracy by making it nearly impossible to collect the signatures needed to get measures onto the ballot. Nevertheless, a number states are still poised to vote on key issues affecting the workings of democracy this year.

Gerrymandering and Redistricting Reform

Missouri, New Jersey, and Virginia are all voting on measures that affect redistricting. In Missouri, Republicans placed a misleading amendment on the ballot that would effectively gut a reform that voters overwhelmingly passed in 2018 to make legislative redistricting fairer, trying to trick voters into repealing the reform by attaching token ethics reforms.

In New Jersey, Democrats have put an amendment on the ballot to delay legislative redistricting until the 2023 elections if the release of census data is delayed. The move is intended to protect incumbents from having to run in new districts for an extra two years to the detriment of New Jersey's growing Asian and Latino populations, whose rightful share of representation would be delayed if the amendment passes.

In an extremely unusual move in Virginia, the state's Democratic legislature allowed an amendment to pass with GOP support that would see Democrats surrender their own power to gerrymander and instead create a bipartisan commission appointed half by legislators from both parties and the other half chosen by retired judges. This reform was a compromise with Republican legislators and includes some flaws, but on the whole it should lead to relatively nonpartisan districts for Congress and the state legislature after 2020 if it becomes law.

Electoral System Reform

Efforts to replace the existing electoral system with something that more faithfully implements voters' preferences are on the ballot in several jurisdictions. These measures take aim at the existing system of plurality-winner elections that can see a third candidate play "spoiler" and cost the runner-up a victory. They all aim to ensure majority rule, but not all may end up having a positive effect.

In Alaska and Massachusetts, voters could adopt variants of instant-runoff voting (also known as ranked-choice voting) in congressional and state elections. This system, which Maine adopted in 2016 and expanded in 2019, lets voters rank their preferences and sequentially eliminates the last-place finisher by reassigning their votes to each voter's subsequent preference until one candidate attains a majority. Such systems cut down on the spoiler problem and help to protect majority rule. Alaska's measure would use a variant where the top four finishers in an all-party primary would advance to an instant-runoff general election. (It would use a regular instant-runoff for the presidency.)

A more novel reform to plurality-winner elections is going before voters in St. Louis, Missouri. This approach would adopt a variation of so-called "approval voting," letting voters cast up to one vote for each candidate and having whichever two candidates receive the most votes in the first round advance to the general election. This system aims to avoid some of the complications of instant-runoff voting but is largely untested in real elections, unlike instant-runoff voting, which has a long history both domestically at the local level and abroad.

A Florida initiative that would implement a top two "primary" for state-level elections could have disastrous effects for partisan fairness and Black and Latino representation. This system is in use in California and Washington and has seen major parties get shut out of winnable general elections solely because their vote was split between too many candidates in the primary. It could also make it much harder for Black voters especially to elect their chosen candidates and is facing a lawsuit that could invalidate it for that reason.

Finally, Mississippi's GOP-led legislature, in the face of a lawsuit, has placed an amendment on the ballot to repeal part of its 1890 Jim Crow constitution that created an Electoral College-esque system for determining the winner in elections for governor and other statewide executive offices. This system has been further strained by GOP gerrymandering, such that it would be impossible for Democrats and the Black voters who support them to ever win statewide. This reform would require majority support to avoid a runoff, a method that is not ideal but is nevertheless fairer than the status quo.

Restrictions on the Ballot Initiative Process

Republicans across the country have gerrymandered their maps and passed widespread restrictions on voting, leaving direct democracy as a critical tool for fighting back against these efforts to entrench GOP minority rule. Republicans have responded by trying to restrict the initiative process to preserve their power and have advanced measures in Arkansas, Florida, and North Dakota that would make it harder for reformers to place new measures of their own on the ballot in the future.

Bans on Noncitizen Voting

Republicans in Alabama, Colorado, and Florida are supporting amendments that would rewrite their constitutions to emphasize that only citizens may vote. While these measures would have no effect on the status quo, they would prevent local governments from experimenting with letting legal permanent residents who lack citizenship still vote in local elections, something a handful of small localities in the U.S. and many European democracies already allow.

Efforts to Lower the Voting Age

Lowering the voting age to 16 is an idea that has quietly grown in popularity in recent years. A handful of small localities already allow the practice in local elections, and a majority of the House Democratic caucus voted in favor of doing so federally last year. A number of foreign democracies such as Austria and Brazil already allow 16-year-olds to vote, and San Francisco could become the first major city in America to lower the voting age to 16 in local elections. Just to the east, the city of Oakland could lower the voting age for school board elections, and all of California could join a growing number of states letting 17-year-olds vote in primaries if they'll turn 18 by the general election.

Other Measures

Puerto Rico will once again vote on whether to become a state, and while the measure is not legally binding, it could spur Congress to act on passing an admission bill if Democrats retake the Senate and eliminate the filibuster. Statehood would mean that more than 3 million American citizens would gain representation in the House and Senate. It would also modestly mitigate the upper chamber's bias against voters of color and potentially lessen its partisan bias toward the GOP, too.

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would assign a state's votes in the Electoral College to the national popular vote winner if states with a majority of electoral votes sign on, has gained steam since Trump's election in 2016 and saw Colorado become the first swing state to join in 2019. However, Colorado Republicans have fought back by putting an initiative on the ballot to repeal the law joining the compact. The outcome of the vote could encourage Democrats in other swing states to follow Colorado's lead, or deter them.

While nearly every state constitution protects the right to vote in some form, Nevada could go even further by enshrining the right to vote in its constitution using modernized language to protect certain methods of voting access. California, meanwhile, could expand voting rights to tens of thousands of citizens on parole for a felony conviction, joining 18 other states that don't disenfranchise anyone not in prison.

Finally, Oregon is one of the last states that allows individuals to donate unlimited sums of money directly to candidates in state elections, but that may soon change. A state Supreme Court ruling earlier this year overturned a precedent that had barred limits on campaign contributions, and now Democrats have placed an amendment on the ballot to codify lawmakers' ability to regulate campaign donations and ensure that the existence of such limits and disclosure requirements isn't dependent upon the ever-changing composition of the courts.

Below you can find a table summarizing all 24 ballot measures we're tracking, and you can find a spreadsheet version of it here.