Election Reform

On August 12, Republican California Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (San Diego) sent a letter to the Director of California's Legislative Counsel, Cara Jenkins, requesting a legal opinion on what he calls an “unconstitutional effort for mid-cycle redistricting.”...

The Denver City Council voted 7-6 Monday to reject a measure that would add ranked choice voting to city elections. The decision means that voters will not have a chance to weigh in on the proposed reform....

California Democrats are getting ready for a fight they can’t win. And taxpayers will foot the bill for the privilege....

It is a classic political threat. Take one more step, and I will act. But this time, even though the target is Texas Republicans, it could easily turn out that California Democrats wind up taking the fall....

The nation’s attention is currently on the ongoing redistricting fight between Republicans and Democrats. The conversation is being framed: “Donald Trump is doing this.” “Gavin Newsom is doing that.” However, what voters are missing is the context of how we got here....

Gerrymandering wasn’t invented by Trump. It predates most states in the union. It’s named after Elbridge Gerry, who sliced up Massachusetts in 1812 to help his party, leaving behind a district so distorted it looked like a salamander....

Responding to pressure from President Trump, Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the Republican-controlled legislature are moving forward with a plan to redraw their district lines in advance of the 2026 midterms. Democrats are contemplating how to fight back and blunt any gains the GOP makes in Texas by conducting their own gerrymanders in New York, Illinois, and California.  ...

It seems like the standoff in Texas over redistricting continues to escalate, as Governor Greg Abbott and other top Republicans want to see Texas Dems who have fled the state arrested and brought back so that they can redraw congressional lines....

Texas Republicans have threatened to redraw their maps to protect their party’s majority in Congress. California Democrats have, in turn, threatened to respond with their own mid-decade redistricting to “fight fire with fire.”...

As Texas Republicans push forward with a controversial plan to redraw the state’s congressional districts, Democrats are weighing whether to deploy one of their most extreme forms of resistance: a quorum break....