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As the 2019 state legislative sessions get underway, a busy year of legal battles also is beginning over lingering allegations that hundreds of electoral districts across the country were illegally drawn to the disadvantage of particular voters or political parties.
First up was a court hearing Thursday in Virginia, where a federal judicial panel reviewed several proposals from an outside expert to redraw some state House districts. The court had previously determined that those districts were racially gerrymandered.
The expert, University of California, Irvine political science professor Bernard Grofman, answered questions about his revisions.
“My focus was on remedying constitutional infirmities,” he said.
Next on the schedule is a February trial in Michigan, where a lawsuit by Democratic voters alleges U.S. House and state legislative districts were illegally gerrymandered by Republican officials to dilute the voting power of Democrats. A similar partisan gerrymandering trial is scheduled for March involving Ohio’s congressional districts.
The U.S. Supreme Court also has agreed to hear arguments in March on separate cases appealing rulings of unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts by Republicans in North Carolina and Democrats in Maryland.
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