Want to make sure can't get voted out of office? Rig voting district maps to make your critics' votes powerless.
See how Alabama Republicans gerrymander so well! You'll also learn how to override rulings from your Federal District Court that say your voter suppression is wrong. (Hint: It involves the GOP-packed Supreme Court).
Background: Alabama has seven congressional districts with about 27% Black voters. Alabama’s Republican dominated Legislature redrew the congressional map in 2021 and assigned a single district in which Black voters make up a majority. Black voters and advocacy groups challenged the map under the Voting Rights Act. A unanimous three-judge panel of the Federal District Court in Birmingham (which has two Trump appointees) ruled that the Legislature should have fashioned a second district “in which Black voters either comprise a voting-age majority or something quite close to it.”
Edmund G. LaCour Jr., Alabama’s solicitor general filed Merrill v. Milligan, No. 21-1086 to appeal the ruling to the GOP packed Supreme Court. The Supreme Court temporarily blocked the lower court’s ruling by a 5-to-4 vote, ensuring that this fall’s election would take place using the Republican dominated Alabama Legislature’s map, the one with a single district in which Black voters were in the majority. - Abstracted from NY Times article
Crooked maps. Crooked results.
Gerrymandering for beginners
Make sure that you cannot be voted out of office by drawing your own voting district to have most of your supporters.
- What about voters who you haven't done anything for and will most likely vote for your opponent? Stuff all such voters into another district (like Alabama's 7th) so how they vote does not affect you.
- How about large pockets of voters (like Birmingham) that will vote for your opponent and should normally be in your district? Draw the district map so that there are part of another district (like the 7th District).
- What about large cities with your opponent's supporters (like Montgomery)? Draw the district boundaries so that area is divided amongst other voting districts with large numbers of your supporters. This dilutes the power of Montgomery voters with your supporters.
GOP packed Supreme Court delivers for Republicans
"The U.S. Supreme Court paused a district court’s preliminary injunctions requiring Alabama to draw a new congressional map that contains two majority-Black districts. This means that the state’s current map — which only contains one majority-Black district — will effectively be in place for the 2022 elections. Justice Brett Kavanaugh stated that he voted to stay the preliminary injunctions because Alabama’s election schedule is fast approaching and altering district lines now could cause “significant cost, confusion, or hardship.”
In her dissent, Justice Elena Kagan asserts that “To reverse that decision requires upsetting the way Section 2 plaintiffs have for decades—and in line with our caselaw—proved vote-dilution claims.” Justice Kagan admonishes the court’s majority for granting the stay without full briefing or argument, writing that the decision “does a disservice to Black Alabamians who under that precedent have had their electoral power diminished—in violation of a law this Court once knew to buttress all of American democracy.” - Excerpted from Democracy Docket
How Republicans gerrymandered Birmingham, Alabama
Redistricting impacts who gets elected
Former wrestling coach, Jim Jordan(R) represents Ohio's Fourth Congressional District. Read more
"... the duck-shaped district that stretches across parts of 14 counties and five media markets and would take nearly three hours to drive end to end. The outlines of Ohio’s Fourth Congressional District have left Mr. Jordan, like scores of other congressional and state lawmakers, accountable only to his party’s electorate in Republican primaries. That phenomenon encouraged the Republican Party’s fealty to Trump as he pushed his baseless claims of election fraud..." - NY Times
AMERICA STANDS FOR FREEDOM. Trump Republicans want to take freedoms away from everyone who doesn’t look, live, and love like them. This November, WE DECIDE. We have a chance to join together across race, place, and party, and VOTE to protect our freedoms for ALL AMERICANS. - WeDecide22
TakeAway: Understand how the game is rigged with maps and through the courts. Vote to protect our freedoms.
Deepak
DemLabs
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