Publications
Redistricting
A 50 State Guide to Redistricting
This supplement to the Brennan Center's Citizen's and Media Guides to Redistricting contains simple and accessible information on how the redistricting process is conducted in each of the 50 states.
– 05/23/11
Know Your Lines: A Visual Redistricting Primer
The Brennan Center has teamed up with the Center for Urban Pedagogy and the talented designers at We Have Photoshop to produce Know Your Lines, an informative fold-out poster that explains with words and demonstrates with engaging graphics what the redistricting process is and why it's important.
– 04/18/11
A Media Guide to Redistricting
This guide provides members of the media with information and tools to open the doors and bring public awareness to a process that is frequently obscure and opaque. The Guide offers a comprehensive yet comprehensible discussion of redistricting issues, information on how redistricting is conducted in each state, and comparison charts of various redistricting methods. We all have an obligation to try to crack open the doors of the process. There is a tremendous story to be told, and the media can play a vital role in telling it.
Authored by: Erika Wood & Myrna Pérez
– 03/07/11
A Citizen’s Guide to Redistricting, 2010 Edition
Just in time for the upcoming redistricting cycle, our Citizen's Guide to Redistricting has been updated and expanded to include recent court decisions as well as the latest changes to state and congressional redistricting processes across the country. This Guide will provide engaged citizens with the knowledge and tools they need to get involved with this round of redistricting, and to work towards continuing reform in the decades to come.
Authored by: Justin Levitt, with a Foreword by Erika Wood
– 11/29/10
A Citizen’s Guide to Redistricting
Explains and presents the redistricting process for state and federal government, and for many local governments, in digestible parts. Consider it an owners' manual, for those who should own the process: we, the people.
Authored by: Justin Levitt with a foreword by Erika Wood
– 07/01/08
Taking the “Re” out of Redistricting: State Constitutional Provisions on Redistricting Timing
This Georgetown Law Review article examines in detail the states’ constitutional language and case law regarding redistricting timing, to chart the likely fault lines of future attempts to re-redraw district lines. It examines the states in which legislatures have unambiguous latitude to do as they please, the states in which legislatures are unambiguously limited, and the vast ambiguous middle. The article also discusses some of the most common scenarios in which disputes over re-redistricting arise, and explores their implications for how ambiguous state constitutional provisions are likely to be construed. Finally, the article offers an assessment of the effects of overly frequent redistricting, and offers some tentative conclusions about the future of efforts to address the re-redistricting controversy, in Texas and beyond.
Authored by: Justin Levitt and Michael McDonald
– 11/01/06
Beyond the Color Line? Race, Representation, and Community in the New Century
By presenting new opportunities for the strengthening of minority voting rights, the new redistricting round will bring up a range of difficult questions about the significance of race, and the meaning of community.
Authored by: Alex Willingham, Ed.
The Real Y2K Problem: Census 2000 Data and Redistricting Technology
Authored by: Nathaniel Persily, Ed.
– 01/01/00