How do congressional districts work

In the U. In most states, elected representatives in the state legislature are responsible for drawing the lines—including the districts for their own re-election. This time around, many states will have redistricting commissions for the first time, putting a bit more distance between the legislature and the process. And many states will be experimenting with collecting more and richer public input than ever before. Try your hand at redistricting!

Make plans of your own and share them widely—in some cases, you can submit them as public input in your state. Many states have rules that indicate that COIs should be kept whole by districting plans whenever possible. But this has been one of the hardest to handle of all the priorities in the redistricting world—if you show up at a meeting to say your community matters, how does that information make its way to the line-drawers?

Districtr lets you put your community on the map literally! This year, more states than ever will be collecting community input in the redistricting process. Register here to attend or check out our training materials. Import an Existing Plan or Community Map. If the legislature and governor belong to the same party, that party, can end up with exclusive control over the result.

PA House and Senate districts are called state legislative districts. Article II, Section 17, of the Pennsylvania Constitution mandates that these districts be drawn by a five-member commission.

Four of these are the majority and minority leaders of the PA House and Senate. These four pick a fifth person to be chair. This commission has exclusive authority to draw the maps. This gives party leaders enormous power over the mapping process. In effect, it also lets incumbents draw their own districts—a clear conflict of interest from the start. Currently, the only way to fight for fair districts is with lawsuits.

The —11 redistricting process resulted in multiple lawsuits that cost Pennsylvanians millions of dollars in legal fees and caused confusion among voters and election officials waiting for appeals to be decided. Fair Districts PA advocates amending the PA Constitution to establish an independent citizens commission with clear rules about public input, use of data and how the maps should be drawn.

Learn about our plan for reform. Although the court has granted in past cases that partisan gerrymandering can violate the United States Constitution, it has never adopted a standard for identifying or measuring partisan gerrymanders. Partisan gerrymandering is described in greater detail in this article.

Gill v. Whitford See also: Gill v. Whitford In Gill v. Harris See also: Cooper v. Harris In Cooper v. Abbott See also: Evenwel v. Abbott Evenwel v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.

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What is redistricting and what does it entail? The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators. New Hampshire. New Jersey. New Mexico.

New York. A non-politician commission drafts maps. The legislature must reject two separate sets of commission-proposed plans before it can amend the commission's proposals.

North Carolina. North Dakota. Rhode Island. South Carolina. South Dakota. A commission divided evenly between politicians and non-politicians drafts maps. The General Assembly must vote to approve the maps without amending them. If the General Assembly rejects the first set of draft maps, the commission must submit another. If the General Assembly rejects this second set of draft maps, the Virginia Supreme Court is tasked with enacting new maps.

West Virginia. Source: All About Redistricting , "Who draws the lines? The state legislature drafts state legislative district maps, which are subject to gubernatorial veto. The Kansas Supreme Court must approve of the maps before they can be enacted. Electoral systems policy. Primary elections policy. Redistricting policy. Recount laws. Ballot access for political candidates.

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