Programming Note: The Voting Rights Roundup will be taking a break for the holidays but will return the week of Jan. 8. Leading off ● Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania's bipartisan legislative redistricting commission gave initial approval to new maps on Thursday, with all five members supporting the Senate plan while the court-appointed tiebreaker sided with the panel's two Democratic commissioners in favor of the House proposal. The House map in particular represents a dramatic change from the past: Under the current lines, which were heavily gerrymandered to benefit Republicans, Donald Trump carried 109 districts while Joe Biden won just 94, despite the fact that Biden narrowly beat Trump in Pennsylvania last year. The new plan, by contrast, would give Biden a 102-101 edge, according to Dave's Redistricting App. Nonetheless, despite baseless Republican howls that the proposal is unfair to them, it actually still very slightly favors the GOP according to the nonpartisan site Planscore. The Senate map, meanwhile, would have given Trump a 26-24 advantage in seats, which is actually an increase from the existing map, which is evenly split. Read more