Gerrymandering/Redistricting

“Our heads are spinning here in North Carolina,” said Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina, which filed the suit. “It’s a huge win, particularly for the voters of North Carolina, just to know that this entire decade they have never had an opportunity to actually vote for legislators in constitutional districts.”

Common Cause, the nonprofit government watchdog group that filed the lawsuit, called Tuesday’s ruling “a historic victory for the people of North Carolina.”“The court has made clear that partisan gerrymandering violates our state’s constitution and is unacceptable,” Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina, said in a statement. “Thanks to the court’s landmark decision, politicians in Raleigh will no longer be able to rig our elections through partisan gerrymandering.”

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is up to it again: promoting new ways to restrict political representation and undermine one of the central foundations of American democracy.

“It’s a gathering of wealthy corporate funders and the policymakers who protect their interests,” said Anthony Gutierrez, spokesman for Common Cause Texas, which issued a 24-page report this week on ALEC’s influence in Texas, a state with at least 58 affiliated lawmakers, more than any other. The state chairmen are Rep. Tan Parker, R-Flower Mound, and Sen. Kelly Hancock, R-North Richland Hills.“We fully expect new attempts to suppress the vote or gerrymander Texas districts to come out of this conference, and we’ll be standing ready to stop them,”