Nonpartisan redistricting? Reform efforts meet reality.

Redistricting was supposed to look different this year. 

In the 10 years since the nation’s congressional and state legislative maps were last redrawn, a record-breaking number of states passed ballot measures intended to make the process more bipartisan and transparent. The citizen-led efforts were cheered by reform advocates as a win for American democracy, a sign that voters from both parties wanted to end partisan gerrymandering, or the drawing of lines for political advantage. 

But with map-drawing now underway, the rubber of those reforms is meeting a very bumpy road. 

In Virginia, the first attempt to draw a “fair” legislative map collapsed in acrimony last week and now appears headed for the state Supreme Court. The state’s new bipartisan redistricting commission – which was created

Under a microscope“What if we made every line less important?”