3 Racially Discriminatory Maps And One Illegal Partisan Gerrymander Could Help GOP Win The House

Earlier this year, federal judges found that the congressional district maps adopted in Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana failed to provide enough representation for their respective state’s Black populations. In July, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled the state’s district map to be an illegal partisan gerrymander.

Nevertheless, these four maps, all drawn and adopted by Republican politicians, will be in use for the 2022 midterm elections. These racially discriminatory maps and illegal partisan gerrymander are likely to cost Democrats between five and seven seats in the House.

That could matter a lot as the polls continue to show a closer than anticipated race for control of the House in 2023.

As polls tighten and President Joe Biden’s approval rating ticks upward, predictions of GOP gains in the House are falling. The average expected House majority the GOP is anticipated to win has fallen from 21 seats at the end of June to just 11 on Sept. 1, according to FiveThirtyEight. Predicted GOP gains fell from 20-35 pickups to 10-20 in Cook Political’s Aug. 30 election outlook.

If the fight for House control winds up even closer, it may turn out to be that the GOP wins control on the back of these four contentious state maps.

In Alabama, Republicans drew a new seven-district map that packed a large portion of the state’s Black population into one district favoring Democrats and dispersed the rest across six majority white districts heavily tilted to Republicans. Since Black Alabamans account for 27% of the state’s total population, a seven-seat congressional district map should provide two Black majority seats, according to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Civil and voting rights groups challenged the map in federal court where a three-judge district court panel, made up of two Donald Trump appointees and one appointed by Bill Clinton, found that the map violated the Voting Rights Act and ordered the state to draw a new map with an additional Black majority district. When Alabama asked the court to lift the injunction on the district map as it appealed its decision, the judges denied it, noting that this was a “straightforward Section Two case,” backed by “an extremely robust body of evidence.”

Similarly, Louisiana Republicans passed a new congressional district map over the veto of Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards with five majority white districts heavily favoring Republicans, and only one majority Black district favoring Democrats despite Black Louisianans accounting for 33% of the state population. A district court judge ordered a new map drawn since the “Black representation under the enacted plan is not proportional to the Black share of population in Louisiana.”

But in both cases, the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority stepped in to override the district court orders and allow both states to keep their unrepresentative maps, saying that it was too close to an election to change the maps. The court also said it would hear arguments in its fall session on whether Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act actually does require states add new minority opportunity districts to reflect minority population growth.

A district court judge in Georgia also found that Republicans in the state should have included a third majority-Black district as Black Georgians make up 33% of the state’s population and grew in number by 500,000 since the 2010 Census. But, following the decision reached by the Supreme Court in Alabama, the judge declined to block the map with only two majority-Black districts from being used in the 2022 election.

“Those are three seats that would have been Democratic seats that aren’t going to be Democratic seats,” said Michael Li, a senior counsel focused on redistricting at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonprofit that advocates for and litigates on voting rights and nonpartisan redistricting.

Up north in Ohio, which lost one House seat following the 2020 Census, state Republicans led the most contentious redistricting process after they refused to abide by a constitutional amendment adopted by Ohioans in 2018 to prevent partisan gerrymandering.

The voter-approved amendment created a redistricting process designed to encourage bipartisan agreement while also banning the adoption of maps that unduly favor one party over the other.

The redistricting process gives the state legislature the first shot at drawing congressional district lines. But they are only adopted if the map is backed by a two-thirds vote of both legislative chambers that includes one-half of the minority party ― in this case, Democrats. If the legislature fails, then a seven-member redistricting commission, made up of five Republicans and two Democrats, gets a turn. If the commission’s map does not receive bipartisan support, then the legislature gets another shot, but their map will only be valid four years, rather than the usual 10.

Twice the Ohio Supreme Court, in 4-3 votes, found that the congressional district maps adopted by Republicans “disfavored the Democratic Party in violation” of the state constitution. But one map went into effect for the state’s primary elections and will remain in effect through the 2024 elections.

That map supposedly gave 10 seats to Republicans and five to Democrats, but three of the Democratic-leaning seats are highly competitive compared to only one of the GOP-favoring seats.

Predictions of the electoral outcomes of this map submitted to the court showed that the most likely best-case scenario for Democrats was to win four congressional seats. That would be just 27% of the state’s congressional delegation despite Democrats winning 47% in recent statewide elections. That is also a best-case scenario. Democrats could win as few as two seats.

That’s a stark difference from the map the Ohio Supreme Court said the state should adopt. That map would give Republicans nine seats and Democrats six.

By adopting the current map, Democrats are likely to lose between two and four seats that they would otherwise win if Ohio politicians followed the direction of the state supreme court.

These four states alone cost Democrats between five and seven seats that they otherwise should be able to win, depending on the overall political climate. That could matter a lot after Election Day if the vote is close.