In North Carolina, two lawsuits challenge a newly enacted voter suppression law.

[link removed]
10/13/2023

The fight for fair maps in South Carolina took center stage in the U.S. Supreme Court this week as the justices heard oral argument in a redistricting lawsuit over the state’s congressional map.

In North Carolina, the Republican lawmakers drastically altered elections with two veto overrides, one of which was immediately challenged. In Georgia, a federal judge refused to block portions of the 2021 voter suppression law and in Wisconsin, Republican-led threats to impeach a newly elected state Supreme Court justice are rebuffed.

============================================================

Disentangling Race and Partisanship: The Fate of 30,000 Charlestonians and One South Carolina Congressional District
** ([link removed])

On Wednesday, oral argument was held in a South Carolina redistricting lawsuit — ** Alexander v. South Carolina NAACP ([link removed])
— after the state’s Republican legislators appealed a three-judge panel’s decision to strike down the 1st Congressional District.

The federal court ** held ([link removed])
that South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District was a racial gerrymander and struck down the map, pointing out that the creation of this district would have been “effectively impossible without the gerrymandering of the African American population of Charleston County.”

In October 2021, after lawmakers kept delaying the 2020 redistricting process and had not yet enacted a new reapportioned map, plaintiffs challenged the state’s 2010 congressional map as being malapportioned. After the Legislature enacted a new map with 2020 census data, the plaintiffs filed amended complaints challenging the new map for being a racial gerrymander in violation of the 14th and 15th Amendments.

On Jan. 6, 2023, a federal three-judge panel held that South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District — home to Charleston County — was a racial gerrymander and struck down the map.
** ([link removed])

** South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District Heads to the U.S. Supreme Court ([link removed])

By Ashley Cleaves

Republicans, however, appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which took the case in full and heard ** oral argument ([link removed])
this week.

During the two-hour argument, the Court pursued a line of questioning to inform the issue before them — whether a ** federal three-judge panel ([link removed])
correctly held that South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District violates the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on ** racial gerrymandering ([link removed])
. There are a few particular ** takeaways ([link removed])
to pay attention to:
* Alexander is the Court’s first racial gerrymandering case since it issued a landmark ruling on partisan gerrymandering in 2019. South Carolina’s central argument in Alexander is that the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature relied on partisanship — not race — when redrawing the state’s congressional map after the 2020 census.
* The concept of an “alternative map” came up repeatedly throughout oral argument. At the onset of the argument, South Carolina asserted that the three-judge panel erred by failing to “enforce the alternative map requirement.” Justice Elena Kagan was quick to retort: “The alternative map requirement doesn’t exist.”
* Certain justices seemed to entertain South Carolina’s claim that the lower court committed “clear legal errors.” Under what is known as the “clear error standard,” an appellate court may only reverse a lower court’s finding of facts if they are “clearly erroneous.” The state attempted to identify a series of factual issues that it believed constituted “clear error.” In addressing the state’s arguments, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson reasoned that the clear error standard…is a highly deferential standard, that the Court may not reverse just because it would have decided the matter differently.”
* The fate of South Carolina’s congressional map and racial gerrymandering claims hang in the balance. While the oral argument focused on some of the more technical aspects of the case, what is fundamentally at stake in Alexander is to what extent the Court is willing to accept partisan defenses in racial gerrymandering cases.

If the Court were to fully embrace South Carolina’s core arguments, it would become much more difficult for plaintiffs to prove their claims and prevail in racial gerrymandering cases.
** ([link removed])

** Amicus Briefs In SCOTUS Case Over South Carolina Congressional Map ([link removed])

By Madeleine Greenberg

North Carolina Republicans Hit With a Double Whammy After Veto Override

On Tuesday, with its ** new veto-proof ([link removed])
supermajority, the Republican-controlled North Carolina Legislature ** overrode ([link removed])
Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of two voting and election laws, ** Senate Bill 747 ([link removed])
and ** Senate Bill 749 ([link removed])
.
* S.B. 747 would have invalidated more than 13,000 votes if it had been in effect during the 2020 presidential election. Among other provisions, the ** voter suppression law ([link removed])
will ban private grants for election administration, launch a pilot program for signature verification and move up the deadline to receive mail-in ballots from three days after Election Day to 7:30 p.m. on Election Day.
* S.B. 759 will remove the governor’s power to appoint election board members to the state board, granting it to the North Carolina Legislature instead. The ** power-grabbing ([link removed])
in S.B. 749 has been opposed at every level: from the current governor to the North Carolina Supreme Court and the majority of voters.

Within minutes of the veto overrides, pro-voting groups ** filed a lawsuit ([link removed])
challenging S.B. 747’s new “Undeliverable Mail Provision,” which the plaintiffs contend will arbitrarily disenfranchise North Carolina’s same-day voters, those who register to vote on the same day they cast their ballots during the state’s ** early voting period ([link removed])
.
* The pro-voting groups allege that the Undeliverable Mail Provision violates the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment and places an undue burden on the right to vote in violation of the First and 14th Amendments. The lawsuit requests that a federal court declare the provision unconstitutional and prevent its enforcement.

Later that same day, the Democratic National Committee and the North Carolina Democratic Party ** filed a federal lawsuit ([link removed])
challenging multiple provisions including various provisions of the law that impose new barriers and requirements for same-day voters. The Democratic groups assert that the law creates a distinct set of onerous standards for same-day registrants, many of whom are students, young voters, elderly voters and low-income voters.
* The plaintiffs also mount claims against a provision of S.B. 747 that moves up the absentee ballot receipt deadline (for ballots that are postmarked by Election Day) from three days after the election to 7:30 p.m. on Election Day. At the same time, the law expands the window for challenging absentee ballots to five days after Election Day. The plaintiffs also challenge a portion of the law that empowers partisan poll observers to move freely about a polling place with fewer regulations and restrictions. The Democratic groups ask the court to temporarily and permanently block the enforcement of the challenged provisions.

** ([link removed])

Democracy Docket hit a huge milestone: we’ve reached 150,000 newsletter subscribers!

Thank you for being one of our 150,000 newsletter subscribers! This month, receive 10% off your merch order of $25 or more across our entire store with exclusive code ** THANKYOU10 ([link removed])
.

Despite Claims of Racial Discrimination, Portions of Georgia’s Suppressive S.B. 202 Go Unblocked

On Wednesday, a federal judge ** declined ([link removed])
to temporarily block five provisions of Georgia’s 2021 voter suppression law, ** Senate Bill 202. ([link removed].)
Earlier this year, several pro-voting groups and the ** U.S. Department of Justice ([link removed])
asked a federal court to temporarily block five provisions of S.B. 202, which:
* Drastically limit the availability of drop boxes in the state,
* Prohibit voters from distributing food and water to voters waiting in long lines,
* Shorten the absentee ballot application window,
* Prohibit counting timely cast provisional ballots in the wrong precinct and
* Require voters applying for an absentee ballot use a driver’s license or state identification card number, or a copy of an alternative identification to confirm their identity on their absentee ballot application.

Pro-voting groups are continuing their fight against this suppressive omnibus law. Litigation is still ongoing in a ** consolidated lawsuit ([link removed])
made up of six groups’ lawsuits challenging S.B. 202. ** Two ([link removed])
** lawsuits ([link removed])
that were not consolidated with these six are ongoing in federal court as well. While this decision is a setback for voters, in August, the same judge temporarily blocked two of S.B. 202’s provisions after finding that the plaintiffs were likely to prevail on their First Amendment and Materiality Provision of the Civil Rights Act claims.

Wisconsin Republicans Retreat After Badgering Former Supreme Court Justices On Protasiewicz Impeachment

Yesterday, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) and fellow Republicans ** indicated ([link removed])
that they would ** walk back ([link removed])
their impeachment crusade against liberal state Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz. This comes after last week when former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser ** advised ([link removed])
Vos that there should be “no effort to impeach” Protasiewicz over her refusal to recuse herself from an ongoing legal challenge to the state’s legislative maps.

The calls have focused on political statements that Protasiewicz made while campaigning earlier this year. Specifically, she has ** referred ([link removed])
to the maps as “** rigged ([link removed])
.” Republicans argued this constituted a predetermination of how the justice would rule on a case challenging the maps. In September, a state judiciary disciplinary panel ** rejected ([link removed])
multiple complaints filed by Republicans alleging the statements violated ethics rules.
* Last Friday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court announced it will ** hear ([link removed])
a case alleging that the state's legislative districts are extreme partisan gerrymanders that favor Republicans. Oral argument is scheduled for Nov. 21. The petitioners ask the Wisconsin Supreme Court to block the current legislative maps and order new, fairer maps for future elections. Finally, the petitioners ask the court to order special elections in 2024 for certain state senators whose terms would not otherwise expire until 2027, arguing that “[b]ecause they were elected from unconstitutionally configured districts, they lack legal entitlement to their office.”

More News
* A New Mexico court ** upheld ([link removed])
the state's congressional map. The court found that while the map favors Democrats, it is not an "egregious gerrymander" and therefore does not violate the state constitution.
* Proposed objections to Ohio’s new state legislative maps have been filed ** in ([link removed])
** all ([link removed])
** three ([link removed])
ongoing legislative redistricting cases before the Ohio Supreme Court.
* The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ** upheld ([link removed])
a Tennessee law that makes it a felony for individuals to pass out mail-in ballot applications if they are not a state election employee. Civil and labor rights groups argued that the law violates the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
* Louisiana ** filed ([link removed])
its response in the U.S. Supreme Court to Black voters and civil rights groups' emergency request for a hearing on new congressional districts. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the hearing to be canceled, delaying a fair map.

OPINION: In South Carolina, Making Redistricting Work for All
** ([link removed])

By Brenda Murphy, the president of the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, a plaintiff in the U.S. Supreme Court case challenging that the state’s enacted congressional map is a racial gerrymander. ** Read more ([link removed])
➡️
What We're Doing

There is yet another ** breaking story from ProPublica ([link removed])
detailing the connection between ** Leonard Leo ([link removed])
, the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative justices and a ** wide-reaching web ([link removed])
of donors. In 2018, Leo ** organized ([link removed])
a large group of donors to launch a $10 million media blitz in support of now-Justice Brett Kavanugh’s confirmation, following the damning testimony from Christine Blasey Ford.

If you’re an Ohio voter, early voting kicked off this week! You can find your polling location ** here ([link removed])
. On the ballot are two high-profile ** constitutional amendments ([link removed])
considering the legalization of recreational marijuana and the right to abortion.

On this week’s episode of Defending Democracy, Marc and Paige speak with Skye Perryman, the president and CEO of Democracy Forward, about how the same forces that work to reduce abortion access also aim to suppress voters! Listen on ** Apple ([link removed])
, ** Spotify ([link removed])
or ** wherever you get your podcasts ([link removed])
.
** ([link removed])
** Democracy Docket Twitter ([link removed])
** Democracy Docket Website (democracydocket.com)
** Democracy Docket Instagram ([link removed])
** Democracy Docket Facebook ([link removed])
** Defending Democracy Podcast ([link removed])
We depend on the support of our readers to keep bringing you the latest on the fight for democracy. You can help ** keep our content free ([link removed])
and available for all today. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can ** update your preferences ([link removed])
or ** unsubscribe from this list ([link removed])
.

Copyright © 2023 Democracy Docket, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
250 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20001