On The Docket 10/22/2021

John,

This week, all 50 Republicans in the Senate voted against beginning debate on the Freedom to Vote Act. This filibuster proved what we already know — there are no Republicans in Congress who support voting rights.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist. And right now, Republicans are the arsonists, lighting the house of democracy on fire.

This is not two sides disagreeing on political issues or policy differences. This is one side trying to disenfranchise Americans and the other trying to ensure our democracy stays intact. History will show that there is a clear right and wrong.

But let me be clear: this is not the end of the road. We will keep fighting to protect voters, demand more from our representatives and litigate if needed.

This is a key moment for the fate of our democracy.

Thanks for joining in the fight with us,
Marc

IN THE NATION’S CAPITAL

Senate Republicans Block Freedom to Vote Act

On Wednesday, all 50 Senate Republicans opposed a procedural vote to open debate on the Freedom to Vote Act, S.2747. All members of the Democratic Caucus, except Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), voted in favor of advancing the bill, but failed to overcome a Republican filibuster. The only way to end a filibuster is to vote for cloture, or the end of debate, which requires 60 votes. Schumer switched his vote to a "no" for procedural reasons and said the Senate will consider the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act as soon as next week.
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"Why would you shy away from debating this bill unless you do not want the American people to hear the truth?" said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn) on the Senate floor, calling out her Republican colleagues from even opening debate on the legislation. Klobuchar worked with several other Democrats, including Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), to draft S.2747. S.2747 is a compromise bill revised from For the People Act, S.1, which Republicans blocked a few months ago. S.2747 would have established national standards for voting and elections, pushing back against the wave of voter suppression laws enacted across the country.

Make no mistake, the filibuster of the Freedom to Vote Act is a serious setback in protecting the right to vote in our democracy. However, states still have substantial leeway to pursue their own pro-voting reforms in the absence of federal action. This week, we outline significant steps states can take to protect voters, which are now more important than ever. Read “Four Things States Can Do to Protect Voting” on Democracy Docket now. [link removed]

REDISTRICTING ROUNDUP

Texas Legislature Approves Unfair Maps, Disregarding Communities of Color

Texas — On Monday, the Texas Legislature completed redistricting ahead of the end of its special session. The state legislative maps were approved without changes and both maps strengthen Republican control in the statehouse, protect Republican incumbents and dilute the influence of voters of color. Democratic lawmakers have criticized the maps for not reflecting the fact that 95% of Texas’ population growth over the past decade came from communities of color. On Saturday, the House made two key changes to the Senate-approved congressional map — the House restored a slim Hispanic majority in the 35th Congressional District and separated the districts of U.S. Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) and Al Green (D-Texas), two Black members of Congress. The Senate-approved version had placed Reps. Lee and Green within the same district, forcing them to potentially primary one another. The Senate rejected these changes and the map went to a conference committee, where the House’s effort to restore one Hispanic-majority district was reversed. The three maps now head to the desk of Gov. Greg Abbott (R), who is expected to sign them into law. [link removed]
Today, we take a closer look at what’s going on in the Lone Star State in “Redistricting Rundown: Texas.” This year is the first time in decades that Texas doesn’t have to seek prior approval from the federal government for its maps under the Voting Rights Act. As a result, we look at how the Texas GOP drew new districts designed to protect Republican incumbents from competitive races, while simultaneously failing to account for the growth of minority communities. [link removed]

Florida — Last week, the GOP-controlled Florida Legislature suggested that they do not intend to host public redistricting hearings, drawing complaints from fair maps advocates. In Florida, the state Legislature draws both congressional and legislative maps, but is constitutionally required to wait until the 2022 regular session to begin the process. Chair of the Senate Committee on Reapportionment Sen. Ray Rodrigues (R) suggested that the need for public hearings has diminished since the Legislature’s lawyers reached the conclusion that the state no longer needs to keep communities of interest together. Instead, the Legislature will rely on comments and proposed maps submitted by the public via a new website, although lawmakers did not specify how they plan to review the submitted content. In response to Democrats and voting rights advocates who have criticized this closed-door process, some members of the redistricting committee indicated that they have not ruled out the possibility of online hearings. [link removed]

AND MORE:
The Democratic-controlled Illinois Legislature released its first congressional map draft, a plan that would likely remove two Republican seats from the delegation’s dwindling Republican presence in Washington. The map — with its notably odd district shapes — has drawn criticism from both Republicans and Democrats.
The troubled Bipartisan Virginia Redistricting Commission faced more gridlock this week, with it looking increasingly likely that the state Supreme Court will take over congressional redistricting responsibilities if the Commission fails to meet an Oct. 25 deadline. The conservative-leaning Supreme Court of Virginia is already tasked with drawing state legislative maps after the Commission failed to meet an earlier deadline.
This week, the North Carolina Senate Redistricting and Elections Committee released several draft congressional and state Senate maps. In Wisconsin, Republican lawmakers recently released their first congressional map draft, as a People’s Maps Commission, initiated by Gov. Tony Evers (D), also proposed several options. The New Mexico Independent Citizen Redistricting Committee recommended three congressional maps to the Legislature, which can reject or approve them. Iowa’s nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency released a second, dramatically different congressional map yesterday after the Legislature rejected the first proposal two weeks ago.

IN THE COURTS

Voters Make Their Voices Heard in the Courts

Florida — Last Friday, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of Florida voters against Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) for his failure to call special elections to fill vacancies in three majority-Black legislative districts. In line with Florida’s “resign-to-run” law, three legislators — Rep. Bobby DuBose (D), Rep. Omari Hardy (D) and Sen. Perry Thurston (D) — filed resignation letters over 75 days ago in order to run for the open congressional seat left by Congressman Alcee Hastings’ (D) death in April. The complaint outlines Florida’s history of quickly calling special elections to fill congressional and legislative vacancies, pointing out that, for 65 vacancies that occured “between 1999 and 2020, it took, on average, 7.6 days for the Governor to call a special election after the vacancy arose.” However, DeSantis has waited over 75 days to call special elections for the three open legislative seats despite the fact that the 2022 legislative session begins on Jan. 11. The complaint asks the court to order the Governor to set special primary and general elections to fill these vacancies before the next legislative session so that the voters of these districts can have adequate representation in the Florida Legislature. [link removed]

Oregon — On Monday, six Oregon voters, including former Oregon Secretary of State Jeanne Atkins (D), filed a petition to intervene in a case brought by Republicans earlier this week challenging Oregon’s newly-passed congressional map. The potential intervenors seek to defend the new map, pushing back against Republicans’ claims that the map is a partisan gerrymander that favors Democrats in violation of the Oregon Constitution. While the Republicans’ petition asserts that the new congressional map is a “clear, egregious partisan gerrymander” that was passed through a “highly partisan process,” the potential intervenors argue that “both the public and legislative records confirm what various news outlets reported: that the congressional map enacted by the Legislative Assembly and signed by Governor Brown was the result of a compromise among legislative leaders.” Furthermore, the allegation that the new districts heavily favor Democrats is exaggerated in the Republicans’ petition, according to the potential intervenors. The potential intervenors also highlight that the new map follows federal redistricting criteria as well as requirements laid out in the Oregon Constitution. [link removed]

Illinois — On Tuesday, a three-judge panel in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois issued an order on how the state’s House and Senate districts will be drawn. In a consolidated case initially brought against Illinois’ legislative maps passed in June, the court ruled that 1) the legislative maps passed in June created with preliminary population data are unconstitutional and cannot be used and 2) the court will take over the redistricting process going forward. It will use revised legislative maps passed by the Illinois Legislature in September (following the release of 2020 census data) as a “starting point,” hear the parties’ opinions on the September maps and determine if they are constitutional. [link removed]

AND MORE:
Earlier this week, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling on Florida’s “pay-to-vote” system — a requirement that individuals with a past felony conviction must pay all financial obligations related to their sentence before they regain the right to vote. The court rejected claims put forth by two individuals, women of color with prior felony convictions, that Florida’s “pay to vote” system violates the 14th and 19th Amendments by denying the right to vote to “low-income women of color who face unemployment, low wages, and difficulty paying off their financial debts at much higher rates than their male and white female counterparts.” The appellate court affirmed the district court’s ruling that this law does not discriminate against women. [link removed] To understand how Florida’s law fits into a nationwide practice of stripping the right to vote from individuals convicted of felonies, read our latest Explainer, “Felony Disenfranchisement Explained.” [link removed]


WHAT WE’RE DOING

Three things to do today to stay engaged in the fight!

We’re taking action:
Door knocking is not just for trick-or-treating this Halloween. If you live in Virginia (or in D.C.), Virginia Democrats need your help to get out the vote! If you are located elsewhere, join a phonebank to help keep the state blue. Find all the opportunities at the Virginia Turnout Project. [link removed]

This week, we wrote about the “Four Things States Can Do to Protect Voting” in the absence of federal action. As individuals, voters must lobby their state legislatures to enact the changes we laid out. If that fails, think ahead on how to utilize the petition process to place the policies directly on the ballot in the 26 states that allow it. In the meantime, we must organize in advance of the 2022 and 2024 elections. [link removed] [link removed]

We’re watching: “A couple weeks ago there was more coverage about the failing of a news outlet… and less about the backsliding of democracy,” Marc said last weekend on CNN, expressing a direct appeal to the media. "Treat [the threats to democracy] like we treat other major stores that pose existential risks to the country by covering it every day in a clear pro-democracy slant." Watch the full clip here. [link removed]


SPOTLIGHT

Expert Q&A: Measuring Partisan Fairness in Maps

This week’s Spotlight might look a little different. Our new Expert Q&A series features conversations with professionals about topics related to democracy. This week, we asked legal scholar Nicholas Stephanopoulos questions about the efficiency gap — a technical, but extremely important metric constructed by Stephanopoulos and political scientist Eric McGhee. Read “Expert Q&A: Measuring Partisan Fairness in Maps” to hear directly from a leading voice on the topic and for an in-depth explanation of the efficiency gap, other methods to measure partisan gerrymanders and how these tools can be utilized in redistricting currently unfolding across the country. [link removed]

ASK MARC

Each week, we pick a few reader questions about all things elections and share Marc’s answers. Got a question? Submit it here: [link removed]

David asks: The Department of Justice (DOJ) brought an intent case against Georgia’s voter suppression law. If successful, would this strike down the entire law or only certain provisions?

Marc: The DOJ has brought one of the nine lawsuits against Georgia’s voter suppression bill. If the bill is found to have been enacted with discriminatory intent under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), then the law would be struck down. We have seen intentional discrimination claims prevail in a number of states, including in North Carolina in 2017 where the federal appeals court found that the provisions “target African Americans with almost surgical precision.”

Susie asks: You have had past success in the U.S. Supreme Court. With the current makeup of the Court, what hope do you have that they will do the right thing for redistricting or voting rights?

Marc: First, very few cases actually go to the Supreme Court. While the current composition of the Supreme Court is unfriendly to many voting rights cases, we cannot give up or lose hope. In redistricting, just because there are conservatives on the Supreme Court doesn’t mean that Republican maps will be automatically upheld. We're going to make the best arguments we can make, pitch to the justices that are on the courts today and hope that in the end the courts recognize that they are the last line of defense for our democracy.

WHAT BODE’S BARKING ABOUT

“This is a once-in-a-generation moment, one pivotal to the very survival of the country as we know it… For Democrats, this voting rights bill is a top priority, but from now until something is passed, it should be the only priority.” The New York Times [link removed]

“Trust broke down further on the bipartisan Virginia Redistricting Commission on Monday after one member revealed the National Republican Redistricting Trust had been working behind the scenes to help a former Virginia congressman submit his own congressional map proposal — one that now closely resembles the map that the commission is debating.” The Washington Post [link removed]

“Invoking the Reconstruction era in his speech, Schumer said the majority of the Senate was still willing then to move forward on civil rights legislation, despite opposition from the minority. ‘If expanding basic freedoms meant going it alone, that was something they were willing to do,’ Schumer said. ‘Today, we feel the same way.’” Politico [link removed]



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