A conversation I had a few minutes ago reminds me of something I failed to write about last week: the dire shape of the 2020 census. A combination of COVID-19 and massive mismanagement by the Trumpies has caused long delays in delivering results of the census to the states. In particular, the data needed to perform redistricting won't be available until September 30, which is six months late:
The delay puts states with early primaries and redistricting deadlines in a difficult position. At least nine states have constitutional or statutory deadlines to redraw their maps, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, that won’t mesh with such a profound delay in the data delivery.
....The time crunch will hit every state, but it’s particularly acute in states like Colorado with hard deadlines. Colorado’s state constitution requires new congressional maps to be drawn by Sept. 1. The commission is not fully formed yet, but Shipley said her staff is considering its options, including proposing legislation or turning to the state judiciary for a delay. “The other option is, I guess, to wait and get sued because we don’t meet our deadlines, and see what court weighs in at that point,” she said.
...."I am concerned that it's going to increase the volume of litigation," said Jason Torchinsky, an attorney with the NRRT who gamed out potential scenarios stemming from the census delays, including a proliferation of court-drawn interim maps. "So we could wind up with a series of court-drawn maps around the country for 2022, only to have legislatures reconvene to draw new maps for 2024."
What will this mean? Maybe nothing. Then again, I don't suppose that even the September 30 date is cast in stone. What happens if it becomes November 30? Or December 30?
In any case, the end result of the Trump administration's mismanagement is going to be a certain amount of extra chaos surrounding the redistricting process, which could end up delaying all the juicy gerrymandering that red states are looking forward to. Wouldn't that be a shame?
ETTD.
He can't even ratfuck right.
Lol! And +10
How much confidence do we have in this census? And if the answer is "very little", is there any recourse?
I wonder too. A 2015 estimate had Virginia gaining a congressional seat but by 2020 we weren't one of the gaining states though we weren't losing either.
How far will Republicans go to prove they're the biggest jackasses in the room?
https://old.reddit.com/r/iamatotalpieceofshit/comments/lo6pfy/wv_state_republicans_complying_with_the_capitols/
Obviously, nothing is ever far enough.
Super interesting article on potential consequence in Minnesota with an at large congressional election.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mprnews.org/amp/story/2021/02/23/races-for-congress-in-2022-could-get-wild
"...which could end up delaying all the juicy gerrymandering that red states are looking forward to...."
No. All 50 states will proceed -- are proceeding, as we speak -- with reapportionment pending the official Census results. This means that they will draw their ideal maps, and every day of delay will add to the presumptive validity of those maps and make them harder to challenge.
This doesn’t make any sense for fast-growing or slow-growing/shrinking states. How would they know how many more or fewer districts to draw before the census tells them how many seats they’re going to get?
Oh, I know!
Now California can pay to have their forests raked.
Obviously this is the wrong thread. Obviously.
But, still kind of funny.
What's the big to ELF, though?
I'm sure Biden will be blamed.
Thanks for this post. Among other things, it gives me a chance to bring up one of my favorite bits of US voting/ratf***ing history: after the 1920 census Congress didn't reapportion districts.
Prohibitionists and nativists (often the same people) teamed up to take advantage of a "loophole" in the Constitution: the document doesn't state *by when* the reapportionment must be done. Reapportioning with the 1920 census would have meant more districts controlled by "wets" and immigrants, so the "drys" who controlled Congress simply refused to pass reapportionment legislation until 1929...declaring the House would be reapportioned on the basis of the 1930 census.
That's one additional reason for the Democratic landslide of 1932: it was the first House election that took into account the massive demographic shifts in the country from 1911-1930.
(This whole thing of Republicans breaking political norms to retain power "by any means necessary" didn't begin with Mitch McConnell.)
Andrew W.K. is prime for a comeback to make America wet again.
This is going to be a real problem. States can't really do much about redistricting until the Census data are released at sufficient geographic detail. And, of course, some states will gain seats in the House while others lose them (barring a miracle). My guess is that the 2022 congressional elections are highly likely to be conducted without any redistricting having been done.
Virginia has an election coming up this November. We were hoping for new districts that don't favor Republicans so heavily. We may not get them.