Gerrymandering/Redistricting

In a massive win for Greensboro, N.C. and its voters, a federal judge ruled Monday that city council districts drawn by the North Carolina state legislature in 2015 unconstitutionally discriminated against African-Americans and Democratic Party voters.

Overnight, the Georgia Senate voted down House bill 515, a racial gerrymandering proposal that had been dropped at the end of session on short notice in the House and cleared through committee in minutes without public comment. Common Cause Georgia fought the bill from the outset and urged the Senate to vote it down on the grounds that significant numbers of Black voters would be packed into legislative districts with “safe” seats – thereby diluting their voting power to elect candidates of their choice - in order to move new white voters into Republican legislative districts that were carried by Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton during the presidential election.

Today, Common Cause Georgia urged the state Senate to oppose House bill 515, a gerrymandering proposal dropped at the end of session on short notice and cleared through committee in minutes without public comment. The letter to Senate leadership emphasizes that significant numbers of Black voters would be packed into legislative districts with “safe” seats – thereby diluting their voting power to elect candidates of their choice - in order to move new white voters into Republican legislative districts that were carried by Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton during the presidential election.

The Supreme Court today, in Bethune-Hill v Virginia State Board of Elections, remanded the case back to the federal district court to determine whether legislators, in drawing lines for 11 districts shortly after the 2010 Census, used race as a factor to dilute the voting power of Black voters in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

The Supreme Court has ordered a second look at claims that Virginia legislators set out to dilute the voting power of black citizens when they drew new boundaries for 11 state legislative districts following the 2010 census.

Redistricting Reform: Mapping Our Future