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Blog
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Welcome to the Holtzman Vogel Law Blog. We aim to keep you
up to date on important legal developments and other items of interest. On this
blog, we'll track developments in the news and changes to the rules and regulations
affecting political committees, corporate PACs, trade associations, non-profit groups
and advocacy organizations. We'll also keep you updated on the lobbying and ethics
arena. The Law Blog is designed to supplement our regular newsletter.
On behalf of the Holtzman Vogel team, I hope you find this site helpful and interesting.
And we hope you'll become a regular visitor. (If you'd like to receive our newsletter,
please click here to sign up.)
Jill Holtzman Vogel
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Sunday, June 06, 2010
Politico: GOP lags in early redistricting race
From Politico: "Outmaneuvered by the GOP during the last round of redistricting a decade ago, Democrats appear to have an early advantage as the two parties gear up again for the expensive and high-stakes battle over redrawing state legislative and congressional districts....Applying the lessons gleaned after the 2000 census, Democrats have moved more quickly to adapt to new rules on the types of fundraising available to finance redistricting efforts. They have also built a network of groups, with the blessing of the Obama White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, that appear to be better positioned for the complex task that will begin next year in state capitals and courtrooms across the country after the 2010 census is complete."
Click here to read the entire post.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Rose Institute Report on State Redistricting Processes
The Rose Institute of State and Local Government recently published this report, Redistricting in America: A State-by-State Analysis, which "provides a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of legislative and congressional redistricting systems in each of the 50 states." Their website also includes an interactive map for quick reference.
Monday, March 29, 2010
CQ Politics: Ramping Up for Redistricting
From CQ Politics: " party operatives on both sides are solidifying their strategies behind the scenes for the upcoming redistricting fight that will have an impact on congressional politics for the next decade."
Click here to read the entire post.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Wash. Post: Democrats counter Republicans' pre-redistricting push
The Washington Post reports "Hoping to counter a series of Republican efforts aimed at winning governorships and state legislatures in advance of the decennial congressional redistricting process, the Democratic Governors Association is launching its own venture, led by veteran party strategist Harold Ickes. Ickes, who served as one of the top operatives in Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign, characterized his role as fundraiser in chief ('I don't do strategy,' he says wryly) for the effort, which is being called Project SuRGe (Stop Republican Gerrymandering)."
Click here to read the entire post.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
AP: Dems want `soft money' for redistricting
AP reports "The National Democratic Redistricting Trust is asking the Federal Election Commission to let lawmakers raise soft money for the legal fights likely to develop as congressional district boundaries are redrawn after this year's census."
The Advisory Opinion Request is available here.
The issue of whether "soft money" can be raised and spent on redistricting efforts has been unresolved since BCRA became law in late 2002. The FEC was unable to answer the question in 2003, and avoided the question in 2007.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Karl Rove: The GOP Targets State Legislatures; He who controls redistricting can control Congress.
Karl Rove has this op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. He writes, "Some of the most important contests this fall will be way down the ballot in communities like Portsmouth, Ohio and West Lafayette, Ind., and neighborhoods like Brushy Creek in Round Rock, Texas, and Murrysville Township in Westmoreland County, Pa. These are state legislative races that will determine who redraws congressional district lines after this year's census, a process that could determine which party controls upwards of 20 seats and whether many other seats will be competitive....Republican strategists are focused on 107 seats in 16 states. Winning these seats would give them control of drawing district lines for nearly 190 congressional seats. Six of these states are projected to pick up a total of nine seats, and five are expected to lose a combined six seats."
Thursday, March 04, 2010
NYT: Californians Compete for a Shot at Redistricting
From the New York Times: "Nearly 31,000 of them have raised their hands for the complex and highly bureaucratic task of redrawing the districts of the State Legislature and of the State Board of Equalization, which administers certain taxes — the only citizen effort of its kind in the country....First, a panel from the state auditor’s office will review the application materials, which include letters of recommendation and personal essays from commission hopefuls. The panel will then somehow identify 120 of the most qualified applicants — 40 Democrats, 40 Republicans and 40 that are either independent voters or members of other parties — interview them and winnow the number down to 60, 20 from each subset....The list is also dotted with professional reformers who worked toward creating the commission they now want to sit on, like the heads of two nonpartisan research groups based in Los Angeles: Robert M. Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies, and Zabrae Valentine, the executive director of the California Forward Action Fund."
It remains to be seen if a commission of political activists and interest group representatives will approach the task of redistricting any differently than the legislature would.
Click here to read the entire post.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Phil. Inquirer: Murtha House seat likely to disappear
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that "demographers estimate that Pennsylvania will lose at least one seat in the decennial reapportionment of House seats among the states after the 2010 Census - and some political analysts believe the 12th District would be an easy target for state lawmakers reshuffling boundaries before the 2012 elections. Murtha's district, which looks somewhat like a crustacean spread over parts of nine counties, was itself gerrymandered into existence to save his job a decade ago, after the Census determined that Pennsylvania would lose two representatives because of sluggish population growth relative to other states."
Click here to read the entire post.
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
CQ Politics: Drawing the Lines in California
CQ Politics on redistricting in California.
Click here to read the entire post.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Wash. Post: Republicans' allies eye state legislatures as redistricting nears
From the Washington Post: "Seeking to capitalize on the excitement among Republican potential donors after Scott Brown's stunning capture of a Senate seat in Massachusetts last week, two independent groups focused on helping the party regain state legislative majorities before next year's nationwide redistricting are significantly ramping up their efforts. The American Majority Project (AMP) is the new kid on the block, a 527 group -- meaning it is allowed by law to accept unlimited contributions -- formed in recent days with the backing of Republican heavyweights such as former Florida governor Jeb Bush and an advisory board that includes former congressman Robin Hayes (N.C.), former Republican National Committee chairman Mike Duncan and GOP superlawyer Ben Ginsberg.
The Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC), which has been around since 2002 to help aid GOP candidates running for state legislatures and other state offices, is getting something of a makeover -- bringing on former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie as its chairman and former National Republican Congressional Committee chairman Tom Reynolds (N.Y.) as its vice chairman."
Click here to read the entire post.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
LA Times: Redistricting reform struggles
The Los Angeles Times has this piece on redistricting reform efforts in California. "Proposition 11, sponsored by a coalition of nonpartisan good-government groups and heavily funded by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, passed by a thin margin (1.8%) in November 2008. It called for creation of a 14-member independent citizens commission to draw districts for the Legislature and state Board of Equalization. . . . A small group of Democratic political insiders is trying to repeal Prop. 11 and also torpedo a sequel that would extend the redistricting reform to congressional seats. They've filed an initiative for the November ballot. . . . A bigger threat to reform is an initiative conceived by Michael Berman, a longtime Democratic strategist, redistricting guru and brother of U.S. Rep. Howard Berman of Van Nuys. The Bermans' goal is to kill an initiative that would also hand congressional redistricting to the independent commission. The Berman proposal would commit a double execution by simultaneously burying Prop. 11. All redistricting would be returned to the Democratic-dominated Legislature."
Click here to read the entire post.
Monday, January 04, 2010
Politics Magazine on 2010 Redistricting Efforts
Politics magazine has this piece on the lay of the land for the next round of redistricting. "Much has changed in the 10 years since Texas’ Martin Frost led redistricting operations for national Democrats—including Frost getting redistricted out office. The McCain-Feingold campaign finance law has shifted the rules on soft money, U.S. Supreme Court decisions have changed the legal landscape, and Democrats have reversed the congressional majority the GOP thought it was cementing in 2000. But as the next round of redistricting approaches, the outright partisan warfare that the decennial high stakes political game inspires remains the same." The Politics piece also details some of the organizational structures the two parties have in place for redistricting.
Click here to read the entire post.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Wash. Post: States in play: An early look at 2011 redistricting
From the Washington Post: "The Census Bureau gave political junkies a gift last week with the release of its latest population estimates, data that give very good indications of which states are set to gain congressional seats and which will lose them in the 2011 redistricting process. . . . The gainers are, not surprisingly, primarily in the South and Southwest, the regions that have been growing fastest for much of the past two decades. Among the eight states -- Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Washington -- Republicans control the governorship and both houses of the state legislature in five. Control in Nevada is split, while Arizona and Washington use independent commissions to draw their lines, taking their legislatures and governors out of play. The losers -- again, not surprisingly -- come from the Northeast and the industrial Midwest (a.k.a. the Rust Belt). In five of the 10 states -- Ohio, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania -- the parties split control of the governorships and legislatures, while in Illinois, Massachusetts and New York, Democrats control the state government. Iowa and New Jersey use independent redistricting commissions."
Click here to read the entire post.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Politico: Reapportionment winners and losers
From Politico: "Texas stands to be the big winner after next year’s decennial reapportionment, with two political analysis firms projecting that the Lone Star State will gain at least three new congressional seats for the 2012 elections. . . . The analysis, from the political firms Polidata and Election Data Services, predicts eight states will gain an additional House seat: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Washington. The states that would lose House seats are: Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio (2) and Pennsylvania."
Click here to read the entire post.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
CQ Politics: The Next Battle to Draw the Lines
CQ Politics has this article on how the 2010 state legislative elections will impact the next round of Congressional redistricting. "The people who are elected to populate the statehouses will take the lead in drawing a national congressional district map to be used through the elections of 2020 — long after President Obama, and probably most of the House’s current leadership, have left the national stage. That’s why Republicans and Democrats alike have a special incentive for putting enormous tactical energy, not to mention millions of dollars, into next year’s gubernatorial and state legislative campaigns in the three dozen states where the outcome for redistricting hangs in the balance." CQ Politics also has a companion article on the reapportionment process.
Click here to read the entire post.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Lawsuit Seeks To Expand Size of U.S. House of Representatives To Between 932 And 1,761 Congressmen
The New York Times reports that a lawsuit will be filed asking a court to order Congress to expand its numbers. The basic objection is that different House districts have different numbers of people in them. For example, "The most populous district in America right now, according to the latest Census data, is Nevada’s 3rd District, where 960,000 people are represented in the House by just one member. All of Montana’s 958,000 people likewise have just one vote in the House. By contrast, 523,000 in Wyoming get the same voting power, as do the 527,000 in one of Rhode Island’s two districts and the 531,000 in the other." This disparity, says the lawsuit, violates the one person, one vote rule.
Click here to read the entire post.
Monday, September 14, 2009
USA Today on the Redistricting Process
USA Today has this editorial ("Public interest suffers as politicians pick their voters"), arguing that "One reason compromise has become a dirty word in American politics is the skewed system — set up by the politicians, largely behind closed doors — of how members of the House of Representatives and state legislatures are selected. In state after state, Democrats and Republicans have conspired to create as many safe congressional and legislative districts as possible. By jamming Democrats together in one set of often grotesquely shaped districts and Republicans together in others, the parties minimize the number of seats that have to be fought for in the general election. This makes incumbents' jobs easier but denies millions of voters meaningful choices at the polls."
Click here to read the entire post.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
WSJ: Next Year's Census Count Promises to Rejigger Political Map
The Wall Street Journal has this report on the political ramifications of the upcoming census: "Early analysis indicates that Texas will likely be the biggest winner since the prior count a decade ago, picking up three or four seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures and Election Data Services Inc., a political-consulting firm. Other states poised to gain at least one seat include Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Florida and Utah."
Click here to read the entire post.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
CQ Politics: A Call to Overhaul Congressional Redistricting
From CQ Politics: "One year before the 2010 census initiates the politically significant process of redrawing congressional district lines, some lawmakers are making a last-ditch federal effort to overhaul a procedure they say has exacerbated partisan warfare in Congress. Rep. John Tanner, D-Tenn., is introducing a bill that would require states to establish an independent, bipartisan redistricting commission to redraw congressional lines early next decade. In most states, the line-drawing process is controlled by governors and state legislators who use sophisticated computer software to draw districts that meet their partisan goals."
Click here to read the entire post.
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
CQ Politics: Eye on Redistricting: Florida’s Where the Early Action Is
CQ Politics reports "In Florida, an effort is under way to gather signatures for a 2010 ballot initiative that would require the legislature to draw congressional districts that are compact, contiguous and do not 'favor or disfavor an incumbent or political party.' The idea is to create more robust two-party competition in Florida, where Republicans control 76 of 120 seats in the state House and 26 of 40 seats in the state Senate — even though Barack Obama carried the state in the 2008 election."
Click here to read the entire post.
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