The #SupremeCourt on Thurs allowed the use of a #SC congressional map that a lower court said “exiled” thousands of #BlackVoters to carve out a district safer for a #WhiteRepublican incumbent.
The decision was a victory for #Republicans not only because it clears the way for a map that is favorable to the #GOP. It also sets a high bar for determining when a map can be considered a #RacialGerrymander, rather than a #partisan one. #SCOTUS has previously found the #Constitution bars racial #gerrymandering but that federal courts cannot police partisan gerrymandering.
Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel #Alito noted many predominantly #Black precincts in #Charleston were moved out of one district & into another. But “because of the tight correlation between race & partisan preferences, this fact does little to show that #race, not #politics drove the legislature’s choice,” he wrote.
"Senate Dems have reintroduced John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, landmark bill that would restore and strengthen the Voting Rights Act to protect voters and democracy." #VotingRights#VRA
"Spend less time reporting on who’s likely to win an election & more on what they’d do if elected. Pay more attention to nonpresidential races -incl. those for state & local offices. Report the important positive news & not just the important bad news..."
& Question GOP MOC re #Ukraine funding, #TFG's threats, #J6... 24/7.
Reading the fabulous Democracy Awakens by Heather Cox. On the historical chapters and two things stand out to me
-What level of self hatred could anyone have voting for or affiliating with a self described "Goldwater Girl" . Its cartoonish. Its beyond cartoonishm Of someone hates you for existing you dont for someone that was affiliated with the poster child for racism
-I though Dobbs was the ultimate final act of legitimacy by the Roberts Rape Court.
When you understand the bloody history of what finally allowed the Voting Rights Act to come to fruition, you understand that every "Justice" that voted to gut it is a fucking racist and the failure of the executive to round up and arrest any court member for violating the consttituon makes him a Magoo.
Biden is Me Mcgoo and tribal dems are lemmings in a world where Disney didnt murder them for good footage but actually leap off cliffs
“A national law firm speaking for the Republican National Committee and Nevada Republican Party is threatening to sue the Nevada Secretary of State, Carson City and other counties for what it claims are too-high voter registration rates.”
Republican leaders unite to destroy voting rights:
13 states--AL, AK, GA, ID, IN, IA, KS, MS, MT, NE, SC, TX, and WV--file 5th Circuit brief supporting Louisiana's argument that there is no private right of action to enforce VRA Sec. 2. -Marc Elias
🚨 "The entire 5th Circuit will rehear a case challenging the commissioners map of Galveston County, Texas. The move voids a decision from a panel of 5th Circuit judges striking down the map for violating the VRA by suppressing Black & Latino voters."
GOP judges, esp. in the SC, have decimated Voting Rights *strategic & diabolical.
The 8th C’s decision in AR State Conf. NAACP v AR Board of Appt. eliminates the ability of any prv. group or person to sue to enforce the VRA -maj. opinion: Judge Stras, a fmr C Thomas clerk/#TFG appointee -radically reshapes voting rights. 2013, after Shelby Co came down: TX’s & NC's photo ID law went into effect & NC got rid of same-day voter reg. & voter reg. drive-.
The 11th Circuit reversed Dist. Court Judge Grimberg’s ruling in Rose v Raffensperger, a case challenging racial discrimination in GA’s method of election for Public Service Com.
Huge loss for Black voters.
As a reasoning for why the 11th Circuit overturned the dist. court’s ruling in favor of Black voters: “simply put, plaintiffs' request strains both federalism & Section 2 [of the Voting Rights Act of 1965] to the breaking point.” -James Woodall
The St. Louis-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit found in a 2-1 ruling Monday that only the U.S. Attorney General is authorized to sue states and municipalities under Section 2 of the #VRA, which prohibits discriminatory voting practices on the basis of race, color or other protected characteristics.
The ruling bars groups like the NAACP from asking the courts to enforce the law
The decision is likely to be appealed to the #SupremeCourt and, if allowed to stand, could severely undermine enforcement of the 1965 #VotingRightsAct John Fritze reports.
Currently, the ruling applies to seven states, including Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.
In the new book Voting in Indian Country, Jean Reith Schroedel weaves together historical and contemporary voting rights conflicts as the election nears
by Nina Lakhani in New York
Fri 16 Oct 2020
"#VoterSuppression has taken centre stage in the race to elect potentially the 46th president of the United States. But we’ve heard little about the 5.2 million #Native Americans whose ancestors have called this land home before there was a US president.
"The rights of indigenous communities – including the right to vote – have been systematically violated for generations with devastating consequences for access to #CleaAir and #water, #health, #education, economic opportunities, #housing and #sovereignty. Voter turnout for Native Americans and Alaskan Natives is the lowest in the country, and about one in three eligible voters (1.2 million people) are not registered to vote, according to the National Congress of American Indians.
"In a new book, Voting in Indian County: The View from the Trenches, Jean Reith Schroedel, professor emerita of political science at Claremont Graduate University, weaves together historical and contemporary voting rights conflicts.
"Is the right to vote struggle for Native Americans distinct from the wider struggle faced by marginalized groups in the US?
"One thing few Americans understand is that American Indians and #NativeAlaskans were the last group in the #UnitedStates to get #citizenship and to get the #vote. Even after the civil war and the Reconstruction (13th, 14th and 15th) amendments there was a supreme court decision that said #IndigenousPeople could never become US citizens, and some laws used to disenfranchise them were still in place in 1975. In fact first-generation violations used to deny – not just dilute voting rights – were in place for much longer for Native Americans than any other group. It’s impossible to understand contemporary voter suppression in Indian Country without understanding this historical context.
"The motivation for the VRA was the egregious treatment of #black people in the south, and for the first 10 years there was a question over whether it even applied to #AmericanIndian and Native Alaskan populations. It wasn’t really discussed until a #CivilRights commission report in 1975 which included cases from #SouthDakota and #Arizona that showed equally egregious #discrimination and absolute denial of right to vote towards Native Americans – and also #Latinos.
"When voter suppression is discussed by politicians, advocates and journalists, it’s mostly about African American voters, and to a lesser degree Latinos. Why are Native Americans still excluded from the conversation?
"Firstly they are a small population and secondly most of the most egregious abuses routinely occur in rural isolated parts of #IndianCountry where there is little media focus. But it’s happening – take Jackson county in South Dakota, a state where the governor has done little to protect people from #Covid. The county council has just decided to close the legally mandated early voting centre on the #PineRidgeReservation, citing concerns about Covid, but not in the voting site in #Kadoka, where the white people go. Regardless of the intent, this will absolutely have a detrimental effect on Native people’s ability to vote. And South Dakota, like many other states, is also a very hard place for Native people to vote by mail. In the primary, the number of people who registered to #VoteByMail increased by 1,000% overall but there was no increase among reservation communities. In #Oglala county, which includes the eastern part of Pine Ridge, turnout was about 10%.
"The right to vote by mail is a hot political and civil rights issue in the 2020 election – could it help increase turnout in Indian Country?
"No, voting by mail is very challenging for Native Americans for multiple reasons. First and foremost, most reservations do not have home mail delivery. Instead, people need to travel to post offices or postal provide sites – little places that offer minimal mail services and are located in places like gas stations and mini-marts. Take the Navajo Nation that encompasses 27,425 square miles – it’s larger than West Virginia, yet there are only 40 places where people can send and receive mail. In West Virginia, there are 725. Not a single PO box on the Navajo Nation has 24-hour access."
@marcelias Alabamian "legislators" stubbornly defend their racist serial electoral fraud obsessions.
"...
“Maps like the ones [voting rights groups] propose would also create majority-minority districts ‘in greater numbers than they otherwise would have been’ if race hadn’t been used,” the state argued, quoting from the Harvard ruling. “But the Constitution forbids using race ‘to discriminate against those racial groups that were not the beneficiaries of the race-based preference.’” In other words, the courts’ cure for unconstitutional racial gerrymandering would itself amount to unconstitutional racial gerrymandering in Alabama’s eyes.
..."
No, #WashingtonPost, the Supreme Court did not say that #Alabama had to draw another district "favorable" to Black residents, as your headline wrongly claims. The word "favorable" doesn't occur a single time in the decision.
The word they used many times was "proportional", and the idea behind that word is that the districts need to be equitable to Black residents. EQUITABLE, not "favorable."
Shame on #WaPo for this bad headline.
Gift link: https://wapo.st/3IYWbHx #VotingRights#SCOTUS#VRA
Supreme Court allows for Louisiana congressional map to be redrawn to add another majority-Black district (www.cnn.com)
The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Louisiana congressional map to be redrawn to add another majority-Black district.