Michael Li: Understanding Reapportionment and Redistricting

Michael Li, senior counsel for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School spoke to National Press Foundation Statehouse Fellows on February 5th, 2021.
4 TAKEAWAYS:
➀ The fight over 2021 redistricting reflects the success of the GOP of 2010. Michael Li, senior counsel for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, said that redistricting historically made voters’ “eyes glaze over.” But in 2010, Republicans controlled the process at the state level, redrawing state legislative and congressional districts in ways that boosted their prospects. Both sides are paying attention now. “We just had an election to determine who holds power the next two years,” he said. “Redistricting will determine who holds power for the next 10 years.”

➁ Population trends favor minority voters. Population growth is slowing in the U.S., but some areas and groups continue to grow. Texas alone has picked up more residents than the 35 slowest-growing states combined. It means Texas could gain three seats in Congress, while New York will lose two and several Upper Midwest states will lose one each. Eight in 10 new voters registered in the past decade are people of color.

➂ Explicit race-based gerrymandering isn’t allowed, but it also can be tough to prove. Li said that using race and ethnicity to draw lines – for example, creating majority-Black districts that can give Black voters more of a voice in that one district but diminish it in every other district – is allowed, but only up to a point. Districts can’t predominantly be based on race, and often it’s hard to parse the differences between race and political loyalty. Is a convoluted district drawn that way to pack all the Black voters into one district (not allowed), or to pack all the Democratic voters into one district (allowed)?

➃ The fight will be in the statehouses. Some states have moved to independent commissions or advisory panels that seek to remove politics from the redistricting process. But, for the most part, legislatures will continue to draw maps in most states, Li said. The most important states to watch: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Texas.