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Redistricting was a major factor in this year’s midterm elections, where the creation of new districts in some states and the elimination of districts in others created drama in primary elections on both sides of the aisle.
But four states have unresolved court challenges to their redistricting process that will impact the 2024 congressional elections.
In Ohio, congressional maps are drawn by the Ohio Redistricting Commission. Earlier this year, the state’s Supreme Court ruled that the maps submitted by the commission were unfairly gerrymandered in favor of Republicans and were unconstitutional.
The court allowed the 2022 midterm election to go through with the lines drawn on the unconstitutional map, but the state’s legislature and the commission will have to redraw maps before the 2024 election.
In Alabama, a court earlier this year ruled that a congressional map drawn by the state legislature violated the rights of Black voters in the state by creating just one majority-Black congressional district, when there are enough voting-age Black Alabamians to create two.
The Supreme Court issued a stay in that case, allowing Alabama’s elections this year to proceed with just one majority-Black district, arguing that the election was too close to draw new maps.
Similar arguments made in Louisiana and Georgia, where courts ruled that Black voters in both states were disenfranchised in new congressional maps. In Georgia, courts never ordered new maps. And in Louisiana, the Supreme Court blocked a lower court order for new maps.
This could all be further complicated in 2024 by a case from North Carolina before the Supreme Court this term. At the center of the case is the “independent state legislature theory,” which posits that state legislatures should have total control over state elections, with no oversight by state courts.
If the court rules in favor of this theory, it could prevent state courts from intervening and ruling against gerrymandered maps in the future.