We’re halfway through the 2021 redistricting cycle … and it’s still underway. As with each new cycle, there was new uncertainty right at the start: how the timing of Census data delivery will affect districting deadlines (including litigation about those deadlines); questions about who may serve as a commissioner to draw the lines; and even a controversy over a presidential memorandum on the apportionment count, later rescinded by a new administration, with several lawsuits filed in the meantime.  And then the uncertainty shifted to how the lines themselves were drawn (and, in many cases, redrawn).

As of Oct. 21, 2025, there are live litigation challenges to federal or state legislative lines in 13 states, and at least one (Ohio) where lines will have to be redrawn even without pending litigation.  There are pending fights over congressional lines in Alabama, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin.  Missouri and Texas just redrew their congressional lines mid-decade; North Carolina has begun the process of a mid-decade congressional redraw as well; Ohio will have to redraw its congressional lines before the 2026 cycle, and California plans a ballot measure in Nov. 2025 to redraw its lines.  And there are pending fights over state legislative lines in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas.  More than 245 cases with an impact on state legislative or congressional lines have been filed in the 2021 cycle; 43 are still pending.

In the 2021 cycle so far, courts struck all or part of congressional plans in seven states, and drew the lines themselves in eight states.  And courts struck all or part of state legislative plans in eleven states, and drew the lines themselves in eight states.  We’ll see what the rest of the 2021 cycle brings.