As populations change and move around, we need to update the size and shape of districts, so each lawmaker continues to represent a fair portion of the population.
In , the Supreme Court ruled that the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution requires that voting districts be equal in population. Article 1, Section 4 of the Constitution gives the states primary authority to regulate federal elections, including congressional redistricting. However, it also says that Congress is the ultimate authority and may supersede state laws.
Congressional redistricting starts with reapportionment. Because the U. House of Representatives always has a total of seats, the country must always be divided into congressional districts. States gaining population are most likely to gain House seats while states with stable or declining populations are likely to lose seats. After each state learns its new number of districts, the lines need to be redrawn so that each district has roughly the same number of people.
Our goal is to demystify redistricting so that politicians cannot get away with gerrymandering. We want to empower you to become a participant in redistricting. We want to give you tools and the understanding how to use them so that you can draw districts that make sense for your community and your state. The purpose here is to educate you about redistricting.
Redistricting may sound like a complicated and boring process, and the politicians would be happy for you to continue thinking so. We hope that you will become empowered by understanding what districts are and how they are drawn, not only for for you to become involved in redistricting, but also so that you can better interact with your elected officials. What Are Districts?
Districts are geographic areas within which eligible residents vote to elect their representatives. Everyone in the United States lives in a congressional district. You can enter your address here to find the congressional district that you live in, and who represents you. Note how your congressional district does not overlap with another congressional district.
This ensures that everyone has only one member of congress who represents them. At the bottom of the congressional district look-up tool, there are links to your state legislature's website.
All state legislatures have districts, too. Most states have a similar address look-up tool or an on-line map for their state legislative districts. If you can find your state legislative district, you will note that your state legislative district does not have the same boundary as your congressional district.
No state has the same number of congressional and state legislative districts, so these different legislatures must have different district boundaries.
If this was not complicated enough, you likely live in local districts, too, such as city council, county supervisor, school board, and even districts like water and conservation districts, among many others. While it may seem difficult for you to discover all the districts that you live in, it is important to be able to determine who represents you.
Have a problem with your school? Contact your school board member. Your social security check is lost? Contact your member of congress. Most elected officials have staff to help you with these sorts of problems. They don't care which political party you are aligned with, as elected officials have learned that constituent service builds goodwill even with people of different political parties.
If you do not know who represents you, elected officials know who they represent. If you are a registered voter, around election time you may receive literature in the mail, phone calls, and visits to your door from people campaigning for office. When you vote, you will find that you can only vote for candidates to the offices in the districts you live in.
In single-member districts, like those for the U. House, voters elect only one candidate to represent their district. In multi-member districts, voters can elect two or more candidates. Department of Justice before changing election laws or district maps.
Department of Justice before adopting redistricting plans or making other changes to their election laws—a requirement struck down by the United States Supreme Court in Shelby County v.
Holder On April 20, , the court ruled unanimously that the plaintiffs had failed to prove that a partisan gerrymander had taken place. Instead, the court found that the commission had acted in good faith to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The court's majority opinion was penned by Justice Stephen Breyer.
Most states are required to draw new congressional district lines every 10 years following completion of United States Census those states comprising one congressional district are not required to redistrict. In 33 of these states, state legislatures play the dominant role in congressional redistricting. In eight states, commissions draw congressional district lines. In two states, hybrid systems are used, in which the legislatures share redistricting authority with commissions.
The remaining states comprise one congressional district each, rendering redistricting unnecessary. See the map and table below for further details. In the table below, click on a state name for details about that state's redistricting procedures. In 33 of the 50 states, state legislatures play the dominant role in state legislative redistricting. Commissions draw state legislative district lines in 14 states.
In three states, hybrid systems are used, in which state legislature share redistricting authority with commissions. As of August , twelve states required redistricting authorities to count prison inmates who are state residents at their pre-incarceration address, rather than in the community where their detention facility is located.
Eleven states had those policies take effect with the redistricting cycle, while Illinois' policy was not scheduled to go into effect until These states differed on whether their policy for counting incarcerated persons in their pre-incarceration districts applied to legislative or congressional maps.
Five states counted incarcerated persons at their pre-incarceration addresses for legislative maps only, and seven counted them at their pre-incarceration residences for both legislative and congressional maps. The states' policies also differed on how out-of-state inmates, and inmates with unknown previous residences, are counted. Two states— Colorado and Virginia —count these people as residents in their correctional facility for redistricting purposes.
Seven exclude this group from all district redistricting population calculations. Pennsylvania excluded out-of-state inmates from all district population calculations, but counted in-state inmates with unknown previous residences as residents of their correctional facility.
Federal inmates are counted the same as state inmates in six states, and are excluded from redistricting calculations in two states. Four states have not addressed how to count persons incarcerated in federal facilities for redistricting. The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Redistricting.
These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles. State-by-state redistricting procedures - Google News. Ballotpedia features , encyclopedic articles written and curated by our professional staff of editors, writers, and researchers.
Click here to contact our editorial staff, and click here to report an error. Click here to contact us for media inquiries, and please donate here to support our continued expansion.
Share this page Follow Ballotpedia. What's on your ballot? Jump to: navigation , search. Congressional redistricting : In 33 states, state legislatures play the dominant role in congressional redistricting.
State legislative redistricting : In 33 states, state legislatures play the dominant role in state legislative redistricting.
In three states, hybrid systems are used. August 20, November 10, October 22, October 14, Daniel I. Weiner, Martha Kinsella, Will Wilder. October 8, Yurij Rudensky, Julia Boland. November 4,
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