[[link removed]]

DISCRIMINATORY CONGRESSIONAL MAPS WILL REMAIN IN PLACE  
[[link removed]]


 

Marilyn W. Thompson
April 4, 2024
ProPublica
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ With control of the House of Representatives hanging in the
balance, the time-consuming appeals process means elections in
multiple districts will take place using maps that have been
challenged as discriminatory to voters of color. _

, Alex Bandoni/ProPublica. Source images: spacedrone808 and
mikroman6/Getty Images.

 

With the Republicans holding just a two-vote majority in the House of
Representatives, voters will go to the polls in November in at least
two congressional districts that have been challenged as
discriminatory against people of color.

After months of delays and appeals, courts have decided in the last
two weeks that the maps in South Carolina and Florida will stand,
giving Republican incumbents an advantage.

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take action on South
Carolina’s 1st Congressional District. In January 2023, a
three-judge federal panel had declared it an illegal racial
gerrymander that must be redrawn before another election was held. In
Florida, the congressional map has faced long-running discrimination
lawsuits in both state and federal courts, with one state judge ruling
that a district near Jacksonville disadvantaged voters of color. A
higher court overturned that judgment, but an appeal from voting
rights and civil rights groups is still pending before the state
Supreme Court, which has said it could be months before it rules.

A decision about another contested district in Utah is pending with
the state Supreme Court and seems unlikely to be resolved before the
elections, according to Mark Gaber of the Campaign Legal Center, who
represents plaintiffs in a partisan gerrymandering lawsuit.

Put in place in 2021 after the last federal census, the controversial
maps were used in multiple elections during the 2022 election cycle.

“The long, extended delays are a real problem, for voting rights and
particularly for Black voters,” Gaber said.

The cases illustrate how difficult it is to reverse gerrymandered
voting maps. Even when lower courts find election maps illegal and
give state legislatures months to make corrections, appeals and other
delaying tactics can run out the clock as elections near.

Federal courts have been reluctant to make mapping changes too close
to elections because of a vague legal idea known as the Purcell
principle, based on a 2006 court case from Arizona that found that
voters may be confused by late changes in polling places or election
procedures.

The U.S. Supreme Court cited Purcell in 2022 when it left an illegal
congressional map in place in Alabama for midterm elections while it
considered a Republican appeal. Black voters cast their ballots under
a discriminatory map, and when the Supreme Court finally decided the
case in 2023, it reaffirmed that Alabama’s map violated Section 2 of
the Voting Rights Act and must be redrawn. A new map is now in place
for 2024, which could result in the election of a second Democratic
representative for the state in November.

The Supreme Court made a similar call in 2022 in a Louisiana
redistricting case after a federal court struck down the state’s
congressional map. Voters cast ballots in 2022 under the challenged
map. Since then, the state Legislature has redrawn the map and created
a second majority-Black district that could help Democrats gain
another seat in Congress.

The exact cutoff for applying the Purcell principle has not been
defined, but conservative Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who
has cited it in his opinions, has said the principle reflects a
“bedrock tenet of election law.”

The delayed rulings and actions in Alabama and Louisiana and a ruling
this week in Washington state
[[link removed]]
have favored Democrats. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court declined to stop
a new state legislative map from going into effect in Washington,
where a lower court had found discrimination against Latinos in the
Yakima Valley. Republicans had filed an emergency appeal since the new
map disrupts four legislative seats currently held by the GOP.

In South Carolina in early 2023, a three-judge federal panel
unanimously found that the GOP-controlled state Legislature drew an
illegal racial gerrymander in the 1st District near Charleston,
discriminating against 30,000 Black residents who were moved out of
the district.

Republican lawmakers have acknowledged they wanted to maintain firm
GOP control of a swing district, currently held by Rep. Nancy Mace.
But they have denied discriminatory intent. ProPublica reported that
Democratic Rep. James Clyburn
[[link removed]],
the state’s most influential Black elected official, gave detailed
confidential input through one of his aides during the creation of the
state’s maps.

Clyburn offered Republicans a draft map that included his
recommendations for how to add voters to his largely rural 6th
District, which had lost a significant Black population, and move
unpredictable pockets of white voters out of his district.

On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Clyburn denied playing a
significant role in a Republican gerrymander.

“When someone picks up the phone and asks you
[[link removed]],
‘What are your suggestions as we’re about to get these lines
drawn?’ I offered my suggestions,” Clyburn said.

Adam Kincaid, the director of the National Republican Redistricting
Trust, said Clyburn’s comments suggest he is “trying to get in
front of” a Supreme Court decision that will uphold the
Legislature’s maps. “I think Mr. Clyburn believes South Carolina
is going to ultimately win,” he said.

The case is now at the Supreme Court. The court heard oral arguments
on Oct. 11, then went silent as South Carolina’s filing deadline for
June primary elections loomed.

In recent months, lawyers for GOP legislators asked the Supreme Court
to abide by the Purcell principle and allow the challenged map to
stand for 2024. Lawyers for the South Carolina NAACP argued there was
plenty of time to implement a corrective map.

After waiting for the Supreme Court to act, the same lower court that
found the district discriminatory ruled that the map would have to
remain in place after all, saying it wanted to avoid voter confusion.
“The ideal must bend to the practical,” the court said.

The South Carolina case shows how the Supreme Court’s “inaction
can be as consequential as an adverse action,” said Wilfred
Codrington III, an associate professor at Brooklyn Law School who has
written on the Purcell principle and its impact on voting rights.

Civil rights advocates condemned the court’s unwillingness to make a
timely decision, which by default gives a competitive election
advantage to Mace. “No one believes they were just too busy to rule
in time. It’s an intentional partisan maneuver,” tweeted Lynn
Teague, vice president of the League of Women Voters of South
Carolina, which has been active in the redistricting case.

In the Florida case, a federal three-judge panel on March 27 upheld an
election map pushed through the Legislature by Gov. Ron DeSantis. The
decision allows elections to proceed this year while a separate state
case awaits resolution.

The federal panel said plaintiffs failed to prove that the state
Legislature was motivated by race when it approved a
DeSantis-engineered plan moving Black voters in the 5th District into
four majority-white districts. The 5th District seat is currently held
by Republican Rep. John Rutherford, who has no Democratic opposition.

DeSantis’ redistricting plan
[[link removed]]
has been mired in controversy since 2022, when he vetoed the
Republican Legislature’s plan and redrew the map with advice from
national Republican consultants. A key feature of the DeSantis plan
was redrawing the majority-Black 5th District near Jacksonville.

A state judge previously struck down his map as a violation of the
constitution, which provides additional protections for voters of
color. An appeals court overturned the judge’s ruling, but the
Florida Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case.

The Utah case involves a challenge to the state’s Republican
Legislature for repealing a voter-passed initiative setting up an
independent redistricting commission and then passing a partisan
gerrymander that splits up communities around Salt Lake City. Utah has
four congressional seats, all held by Republicans.

“We’re still waiting to hear from the court whether the claims
that we raised are viable, and we're hopeful,” Gaber said. “But I
do not think there’s a likely chance of a decision that would affect
this year’s elections.”

Kincaid, who coordinates national Republican redistricting strategy,
said it’s unclear whether court decisions to use contested districts
will allow the GOP to maintain its narrow control of the House.

“Democrats and their liberal allies have spent hundreds of millions
of dollars to try to sue their way into congressional and legislative
majorities,” Kincaid said. When the House majority is decided in
November, he said. “I would rather it be us than them.”

Marilyn W. Thompson is a reporter at ProPublica.

ProPublica - INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST

* voting rights
[[link removed]]
* Racism
[[link removed]]
* Gerrymandering
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]