• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Events
  • Civic Ed
  • Campaign Finance
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • Independent Voter News
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Redistricting>
  3. census>

States can't sue to speed census finale, judge says, assuring gerrymander chaos

David Hawkings
March 25, 2021
Census mailings
Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

States eager to start redrawing their congressional and legislative districts have no right to force the Census Bureau to make up for problems delaying detailed population numbers until the fall, a federal judge has decided.

Ohio and Alabama have sued the federal government, demanding the required data for redistricting by the end of this month. Ohio's lawsuit was dismissed Wednesday by Judge Thomas Rose of Dayton, who said there was no way to compel census officials to do the impossible.

The ruling amplifies a wave of fresh anxiety about one of the main stressors on a functional democracy: Partisan gerrymandering, or drawing maps for maximum advantage rather than for competitive elections in compact communities, looks to be more egregious than ever this decade — a consequence of confusion and compressed timetables thanks to delays spawned by both nature and politics.


The first year of every previous modern decade began with the Census Bureau announcing how many House seats each state will have based on population gains or losses, followed soon thereafter with an ocean of granular data — how many people live in each neighborhood, by age, race and ethnicity — needed for drawing district lines. The reapportionment report has now been delayed to the end of April, with all the detailed population figures not following until the end of September.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Many states have laws requiring maps to be finished by then. And in the last nationwide redistricting, about half the 435 congressional districts had been drawn by October 2011 — mainly in the states with deadlines to accommodate candidate filing deadlines by the end of the year and primaries early in the new year.

The regular timetable is now in shambles. Politicians nationwide are unsure which constituents they should be appealing to. Legislatures are debating bills giving themselves an extension or asking courts to give them leeway. Some states are already considering postponing all the dates on their election calendars.

Several are contemplating a reliance on earlier population estimates in order to meet their deadlines. The Commerce Department has signaled support for this approach, as did the judge in the Ohio case. But knowingly using outdated head counts could subject those maps to legal or even constitutional challenges, spawning even more delays and electorate confusion ahead of the 2022 midterms.

Stresses are particularly acute in states that stand to gain or lose congressional seats, including the two that have sued. Ohio is destined to have to make one of its 16 districts disappear because of modest growth, and Alabama is within a few thousand people of seeing its delegation shrink from seven to six.

Like a plurality of states, redistricting in both of those is in the hands of Republican-majority legislatures, but the Ohio process is further complicated by the overlay of a partially independent commission. Both are among those required to have maps done before the Census Bureau says it will be able to provide the final data.

Only eight states will be using a process that is comprehensively free of partisan control, Colorado and Michigan for the first time relying entirely on independent commissions. Virginia's new system puts such a commission in the driver's seat with partisan players as a backstop, and New Mexico will have a system in with a commission making recommendations to the Legislature, which can amend the maps.

Republican Attorney General Dave Yost said Ohio would appeal. "If the state does not have standing to challenge the Census Bureau's decision to arbitrarily ignore a statutory deadline, no one does," Yost said in a statement.

The Census Bureau now says much of the population detail can be sent to state capitals by August and all the numbers can be delivered in a more user-friendly format by the end of the next month.

The two states' lawsuits were opposed by a coalition of cities, counties and civil rights groups, who sued the Census Bureau last year to prevent it from ending the 2020 census early, fearing such a premature finish would mean an undercount of Black, Hispanic and impoverished communities.

The Census Bureau said it needed the extra time because of delays caused by Covid-19 as well as a spike in hurricanes and wildfires, the civil unrest over systemic racism last spring and data processing problems. In addition, the bureau's work was whipsawed by the Trump administration's effort to supplement the census — and shape the apportionment numbers — with a supplemental headcount of people in the country illegally. As one of his first acts, President Biden rescinded that apportionment order.

The census data are used not only to determine congressional seats and Electoral College votes but also the distribution of $1.5 trillion in federal spending each year.

From Your Site Articles
  • Coronavirus ends last Illinois redistricting reform effort - The Fulcrum ›
  • New Jersey may keep current legislative maps two extra years - The ... ›
  • Evictions plus pandemic could spell disaster for voters - The Fulcrum ›
  • Democrats take step toward partisan gerrymandering in N.Y. - The ... ›
  • Redistricting lawsuits seek to get ahead of partisan fights - The Fulcrum ›
  • Census undercounted Black, Hispanic, Native American people - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Census Bureau Statement on 2020 Census Data Collection Ending ›
  • Census Bureau Missed Dec. 31 Deadline For Apportionment Counts ... ›
  • Important Dates | 2020 Census ›
census

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

Reform in 2023: Leadership worth celebrating

Layla Zaidane

Two technology balancing acts

Dave Anderson

Reform in 2023: It’s time for the civil rights community to embrace independent voters

Jeremy Gruber

Congress’ fix to presidential votes lights the way for broader election reform

Kevin Johnson

Democrats and Republicans want the status quo, but we need to move Forward

Christine Todd Whitman

Reform in 2023: Building a beacon of hope in Boston

Henry Santana
Jerren Chang
latest News

Podcast: Deepening democracy in the states

Our Staff
27 January

Ask Joe: Fostering social activism

Joe Weston
27 January

With an eye on 2024, some states consider new protections for election workers

Barbara Rodriguez, The 19th
27 January

The crook and the fumbler

Lawrence Goldstone
26 January

Pragmatism is the way forward

Dave Anderson
26 January

Podcast: How the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack impacted politics

Our Staff
26 January
Videos

Video: Meet the citizen activists championing primary reform

Our Staff

Video: Veterans for Political Innovation - Who we are

Our Staff

Video: Want to fight polarization? Take a vacation!

Our Staff

Video: Kevin McCarthy is Speaker, but he's got a tough job ahead

Our Staff

Video: #ListenFirst Friday End of Year

Our Staff

Video: Minnesota Gov. Walz asks fellow Democrats to ‘Think Big’ when it comes to fixing voting issues

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Deepening democracy in the states

Our Staff
27 January

Podcast: How the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack impacted politics

Our Staff
26 January

Podcast: Why we misunderstand independent voters

Our Staff
25 January

Podcast: What does the House Speaker election say about the Republican Party?

Our Staff
24 January
Recommended
Podcast: Deepening democracy in the states

Podcast: Deepening democracy in the states

Podcasts
Ask Joe: Fostering social activism

Ask Joe: Fostering social activism

Pop Culture
With an eye on 2024, some states consider new protections for election workers

With an eye on 2024, some states consider new protections for election workers

Elections
The crook and the fumbler

The crook and the fumbler

Elections
Pragmatism is the way forward

Pragmatism is the way forward

Big Picture
Podcast: How the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack impacted politics

Podcast: How the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack impacted politics

Podcasts