News Clips

This month, through litigation challenging North Carolina’s blatant partisan gerrymander, Common Cause obtained critical documents revealing that Republican redistricting guru Thomas Hofeller encouraged party and Census Bureau officials to add the citizenship question because it would significantly harm the political power of Latino communities and be “advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites.”

Kathay Feng, national redistricting director for Common Cause, said the Jones-Hofeller emails cast further doubt on the government’s claims.“Why would she use her personal email? Why would she email a partisan operative about a topic that was not under consideration at the Census Bureau?” Feng said. “The new documents eliminate any doubt about the link between the Republican gerrymandering mastermind and the citizenship question.”

Kathay Feng, the national redistricting director for Common Cause, wouldn't discuss what else is in the files because of ongoing litigation, but she spoke generally about the dangers of politicians drawing district lines that favor their own party."This is an American democracy, and we don't want a situation where, perhaps the best analogy is like Russia, where you have fake choices on the ballot," Feng said. "Where there is no such thing as true democracy, where your vote doesn't matter."

"We're learning what we've long suspected — North Carolina's legislative districts were drawn behind closed doors by an expert gerrymanderer, months earlier than lawmakers claimed," Common Cause North Carolina Executive Director Bob Phillips said in a release.

The advocacy group Common Cause said in court documents submitted in Raleigh on Thursday that the Hofeller files include new evidence showing how North Carolina Republicans misled a federal court to prolong the life of their map of state legislative districts, which had been ruled unconstitutional.The Republicans told the federal court hearing the map case that they would not be able to draw new legislative districts and hold public hearings on them in time for a proposed special election in late 2017 or early 2018. In fact, Common Cause said, Mr. Hofeller’s files show that almost all the work was already done: proposed new boundaries had been drawn for more than 97 percent of the state’s proposed Senate districts and 90 percent of House districts.

“Early voting is going to make a significant difference for countless numbers of New Yorkers by making polling places so much more accessible and allow voters to determine when it is most convenient for them,” said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York.