voting rights

Redistricting Roundup

by

I posted about Arizona’s redistricting case before the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday. Here is what is going on elsewhere in the nation.

Alabama

Federal judges last week ordered black legislators challenging Alabama’s legislative maps to come up with their own boundary lines. Redistricting case: Plaintiffs must provide map proposals:

The_Gerry-Mander_EditThe judges ruled in 2013 that the Legislature’s map did not violate the Voting Rights Act. The U.S. Supreme Court remanded the case back to the panel last March, saying the judges needed to reconsider how race affected the maps.

The three-judge panel Friday told the Legislative Black Caucus and the Alabama Democratic Conference to develop redistricting maps that follow the guidelines established by the Legislature in 2012.

The proposal must be filed by Sept. 25. Plaintiffs have the option of filing together or creating different plans. The state will have 28 days to respond.

The new proposals will not be the final word on the state’s district lines. The judges will consider the maps as part of plaintiffs’ broader argument that the 2012 map had racial biases.

“It’s an exercise, as we understand it, to help show whether the state was trying to target black percentages in each district, and thus sorting white and black voters by race,” James Blacksher, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said Tuesday. “We believe our maps will show they could have accomplished all their objectives in a way that would not have split any precincts or sorted black voters from white voters.”

Read more

Secretary of State intervenes in redistricting case before SCOTUS

by

MicheleReaganArizona’s queen of voter suppression, Secretary of State Michele Reagan, has decided that she wants to join the pantheon of truly despicable secretaries of state alongside Katherine Harris (FL), Ken Blackwell (OH), and Kris Kobach (KS).

This partisan hack is the reason why elections should be managed by an independent nonpartisan election commission, rather than a partisan secretary of state.

Howard Fischer reports, Arizona secretary of state wants redistricting plan voided:

Secretary of State Michele Reagan has joined with Republican interests in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to void the state’s legislative redistricting plan.

In new filings with the high court, attorneys for Reagan point out the population differences among the 30 legislative districts created in 2011 by the Independent Redistricting Commission. They said this raises constitutional questions because it effectively gives voters in some districts more power than others.

But what’s particularly problematic, they said, is that the disparity was done deliberately to achieve a result of improving the chances of Democrats getting elected to the Legislature.

Uh-huh. What Howie fails to mention is that “competitiveness” is one of the criteria enacted by a citizens initiative, Prop. 106 (2000), which created the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission: “‘Competitive districts’ are favored if competitive districts do not significantly harm the other goals…” You remember, this is the citizen initiative that Republicans tried and failed to kill in the U.S. Supreme Court this year.

Read more

California following Oregon’s lead on universal (automatic) voter registration

by

Maybe Arizona’s queen of voter suppression, Secretary of State Michele Reagan, should pick up the phone and call her counterparts in Oregon and California to learn more about what a secretary of state who actually wants to increase voter participation in elections does to make it happen.

Think Progress reports, One Simple Change Could Drastically Improve Voter Turnout In California:

Voting-RightsAs soon as this week, the California Senate could pass a bill to address its dismally low voter turnout by making registration automatic for the millions of residents with drivers licenses.

Copying a landmark law passed by Oregon earlier this year, the policy would connect DMV records with voter registration rolls, putting the burden on the voter to opt-out rather than opt-in. According to California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, this could help bring the 6.6 million California citizens who are eligible but not registered to vote into the democratic process.

“We have a lot of work to do on the strength of our democracy,” Padilla told ThinkProgress. “We need to focus on the whole pipeline: both getting more currently registered people to cast ballots, and getting more eligible Californians on the voter rolls.”

Read more

Keeping The Promise, A Community Panel on the Voting Rights Act – Today

by

Late political calendar announcement:

Congressman Grijalva will host Keeping The Promise, A Community Panel on the Voting Rights Act on Wednesday, August 12 from 9:00-11:00 AM at the Tucson YWCA on the Voting Rights Act, the promise it continues to hold for countless Americans, and the ongoing efforts to undermine that promise 50 years after it became law.

WHO
Congressman Raúl M. Grijalva
Community advocates

WHAT
Keeping The Promise
A Community Panel on the Voting Rights Act

WHERE
Tucson YWCA
525 N. Bonita Avenue
Tucson, AZ 85745

WHEN
Wednesday, August 12
9:00 -11:00 AM

For more information, contact Cassandra Becerra at (520) 622-6788 or cassandra.becerra@mail.house.gov

Press Release (below the fold)

Read more

President Barack Obama calls on Congress to restore the Voting Rights Act

by

President Barack Obama reflects on the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act and calls for its restoration in 50 Years After the Voting Rights Act, We Still Have Work to Do:

The right to vote is one of the most fundamental rights of any democracy.

ObamaFifty years ago today, because of the sacrifice of countless men and women, that right was secured for more Americans.

On August 6, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law — breaking down legal barriers at the state and local level that had prevented African Americans and others from exercising their constitutional right to vote.

Because of that law — one of our nation’s most influential pieces of legislation — Americans who were previously disenfranchised and left out of the democratic process were finally able to cast a ballot. The law was designed to ensure that all American citizens, regardless of the color of their skin, had an equal opportunity to make their voices heard.

But that law didn’t come to pass because folks suddenly decided it was the right thing to do.

Read more