Showing posts with label Voting Rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Voting Rights. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 12, 2023

Challenge to political maps to proceed with state’s claim Black voting power isn’t diluted

Outcome could upend politics ahead of the 2024 election

BY: 

A federal trial that could force state lawmakers to redraw Georgia’s political maps ahead of next year’s election will enter its second week Monday.

Five lawsuits have been filed challenging the GOP-drawn maps that came out of a special session in 2021, but this trial features three of them, including challenges from Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, the Sixth District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and Black voters across the state.

So far, the action has centered on the attorneys for the plaintiffs who are trying to show that the maps dilute the Black vote and violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. If Judge Steve C. Jones rules in their favor, state lawmakers could be sent back to draw up new district lines.  

This week, lawyers representing the state will have a chance to present their defense of the maps, which they acknowledge were designed to protect the Republican majority but say they are fair to Black voters. They have so far framed the legal challenges as a veiled attempt to elect more Democrats, and they say the alternative district lines offered up by the plaintiffs are overly focused on race.

The state’s attorneys have argued that recent elections undermine claims that Black voters are not able to elect candidates of their choice, pointing to the wins of U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath in the Atlanta suburbs and President Joe Biden and U.S. Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in statewide races.

The outcome of the case could prove consequential heading into next year’s election, since Black Georgians tend to vote for Democratic candidates at high rates. Republicans currently hold a fragile majority in the U.S. House, and any Democratic gains in the state Legislature would add to tightening margins under the Gold Dome.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently stood behind Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in a surprise ruling this summer that rejected Alabama’s congressional map. A redrawn plan that still did not include a new opportunity district for Black Alabamians was blasted last week by a three-judge panel, which ordered a third-party special master to do the job.

In Georgia, the cases at trial argue a new majority Black congressional district can be drawn in metro Atlanta and that multiple new Black majority districts can be carved out in the state House and Senate maps. 

William S. Cooper, a private consultant who created the alternative map, said he was asked to explore whether the Black population in Georgia was large and compact enough to warrant an additional congressional district. But he said race was just one of many factors he considered. 

“It practically draws itself,” Cooper said last week, describing the task as “very straightforward, easy.”

That district, congressional District 6, is today represented by Republican U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick who won in 2022 after state lawmakers shifted the boundary lines to favor a GOP candidate. The change prompted the previous incumbent, Democratic U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, who is Black, to challenge fellow Democratic U.S. Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux in the racially diverse 7th District based in Gwinnett County.

As a result, Republicans now hold nine of Georgia’s 14 congressional seats, up from eight under the old map.

The attorneys for the plaintiffs argue Georgia’s political maps dilute Black voting power and do not reflect the state’s changing demographics. The number of Black Georgians grew by about 484,000 people since 2010, with 33% of the state now identifying as Black. Meanwhile, the number of white Georgians dropped by 52,000.

They have put experts on the witness stand who say Black voters are left underrepresented in the halls of power and stuck with a system that is unresponsive to what they argue are Black Georgians’ distinctive needs when it comes to issues like health care access, education, employment and social justice.

“Across every metric I looked at, Black individuals are doing worse than white individuals,” testified Loren Collingwood, a political scientist at the University of New Mexico who analyzed socio-economic data.

Collingwood presented voter turnout results that showed a widening gap between Black and white voters in recent election cycles, though the state argued that the same data also showed Black turnout increasing.

The judge has also heard from Black residents across the state who have launched unsuccessful bids for public office.

Diane Brack Evans, who lives in Jefferson County, has been active in Democratic politics, including three runs for a state Senate seat. But she testified Thursday that she was not so much interested in electing a Democrat as she was in wanting an elected official who would “take an interest in her community.”

Evans shared a personal story about her late sister who had chronic medical conditions but was not eligible for Medicaid coverage and eventually ended up uninsured. Evans let her sister move in and she filled in as her sister’s physical therapist. Her story was not all that unique, she said.

“This is really how it is in this area here,” she said.

Fenika Miller, who also testified for the plaintiffs, is a lifelong Houston County resident who has run twice for the state House as a Democratic candidate – including once against a Black Republican – and is now the deputy national field director for the Black Voters Matter Fund.

Miller was asked by the state’s attorney if the alternative maps would help elect more Democrats. She responded that the maps would allow “more Black voters to have a say in what their representation looked like – regardless of party.” 

This article originally appeared in The Georgia Recorder on September 12th, 2023, of the State News Room network  


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Thursday, October 6, 2022

Supreme Court Poised to Shred What's Left of Voting Rights Act, Plaintiffs Warn

"If the court sides with Alabama," wrote a pair of plaintiffs in Merrill v. Milligan, "political opportunities for people of color will disappear."

photo credit: David Sachs

"If the court's right-wing supermajority has its way, Merrill v. Milligan will open the floodgates for racial gerrymandering across the country and diminish the political power of voters of color," Stand Up America deputy political director Reggie Thedford said Monday in a statement.

Although Black voters comprise nearly one-third of Alabama's population, the congressional map approved last November by the state's GOP-controlled Legislature contains just one majority-Black district out of seven total districts—the illegal result, civil rights advocates argued successfully in a lawsuit filed in federal district court, of "packing" most Black voters into a single district and "cracking" others across multiple districts. To date, no Black candidate in Alabama has ever won in a majority-white congressional district.

A trio of federal judges—including two appointed by former President Donald Trump—unanimously sided with the plaintiffs, ruling that Alabama's recently adopted congressional map unconstitutionally denies equal representation and likely violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) by diminishing Black voters' ability to elect candidates of their choice.

Thursday, May 26, 2022

Press Makes Trump, Not Voting Rights, the Primary Issue

Press Makes Trump, Not Voting Rights, the Primary Issue

 

WaPo: Kemp, Raffensperger win in blow to Trump and his false election claims

The Washington Post (5/24/22) reported that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s GOP primary win “threatened Trump’s reputation as GOP kingmaker.”

The country’s centrist corporate media have decided what this year’s primaries are mainly about: Donald Trump.

In the wake of an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election and continued efforts by the Republican Party to undermine democratic processes, corporate media remain fixated on Trump’s role in the party, seeing the 2022 primaries as a series of referenda on Trump and his role as kingmaker. But the focus on Trump obscures the even more important story that Trump represents: the GOP assault on democracy, which is being carried out only marginally less aggressively by many of those “defeating” him.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is the perfect example of this. After this week’s state primaries, most corporate media made their lead story the losses of Trump-backed candidates, in particular to Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who both played very public roles in refusing to bow to Trump’s demands to “find” votes for him in Georgia in 2020.

The Washington Post (5/24/22) declared, “Kemp, Raffensperger Win in Blow to Trump and His False Election Claims.” A New York Times (5/24/22) subhead read, “The victories in Georgia by Gov. Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, handed the former president his biggest primary season setback so far.” At Reuters (5/24/22), the top “takeaway” subhead read: “Trump Takes Lumps.”

These are stories centrist media like to tell: The voters are sensibly rejecting extremists from their party, so the “moderate” candidates are taking the right path. Journalists tell this story over and over in coverage of Democratic primaries, with “move to the center” stories encouraging the party to reject its progressive candidates. The problem is, candidates like Kemp and Raffensperger are not moderate, except in comparison to Trump—and painting the story as one centrally about Trump obscures the anti-democratic nature of those who defeated his hand-picked candidates.

Boston Globe: Kemp Cruises to Victory in Georgia, Delaing Blow to Trump but Not His Voter Fraud Lies

The Boston Globe (5/24/22) noted that “Kemp had not beaten back the 2020 doubts of voters [who thought that election “stolen”]; he simply found a different way to champion them than Trump.”

The Boston Globe demonstrated that this contradiction could be addressed, with an article (5/24/22) headlined, “Kemp Cruises to Victory in Georgia, Dealing Blow to Trump but Not His Voter Fraud Lies.”

The Globe‘s Jess Bidgood reported:

Kemp’s easy win over Perdue on Tuesday may seem to suggest that the former president and his baseless insistence that fraud and irregularities cost him the election have lost their iron grip on the Republican Party….

Even though he stood up to Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, Kemp found other ways to assuage the GOP base’s unfounded doubts about the issue. He signed a voting bill that added new hurdles to absentee voting and handed some election oversight power over to the Republican-controlled legislature. He spoke of “election integrity” everywhere he went, while Raffensperger leaned into the issue as well.

But even this didn’t go nearly far enough in describing Kemp and Raffensperger’s histories of attacking voting rights. As Georgia’s secretary of state, Kemp for years vigorously promoted false election fraud stories and made Georgia a hotspot for undermining voting rights. He aggressively investigated groups that helped register voters of color; in 2014, he launched a criminal investigation into Stacey Abrams’ New Georgia Project—which was helping to register tens of thousands of Black Georgians who previously hadn’t voted—calling their activities “voter fraud.” His investigation ultimately uncovered no wrongdoing (New Republic5/5/15).

Kemp oversaw the rejection of tens of thousands of voter registrations on technicalities like missing accents or typos (Atlantic11/7/18) and improperly purged hundreds of thousands of voters from the rolls prior to the 2018 election (Rolling Stone10/27/18), disproportionately impacting voters of color (Atlanta Journal-Constitution3/12/20). He refused to recuse himself from overseeing his own race for governor against Abrams, drawing rebukes from former president, Georgia native and fair elections advocate Jimmy Carter (The Nation10/29/18), among others. Kemp ran that governor’s race as a “Trump conservative.”

None of Kemp’s history as anti–voting rights secretary of state was mentioned in any of the next-day election coverage FAIR surveyed. (There was an opinion piece on CNN.com on May 26 that detailed “Kemp’s appalling anti-democracy conduct.”)

As governor, Kemp has further eroded voting rights in Georgia, as mentioned by the Globe (a story that the media managed to both-sides at the time—FAIR.org4/8/21). He has also taken a hard-right stance on many other rights issues, signing into law a bill to prohibit “divisive concepts” from being taught in schools, a bill to ban abortions as early as six weeks and a bill discriminating against transgender kids in sports.

Like Kemp, Raffensperger was an early supporter of Trump who pushed election fraud stories and voter suppression tactics. As FAIR (3/5/21) pointed out at the time, centrist media fawned over Raffensperger for standing up to Trump in the 2020 election, ignoring his “support of the little lies that made the Big Lie possible.”

AJC: A principled stand where it counts

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (1/4/21) editorialized that Georgia Secretary of State Brad “Raffensperger deserves kudos from all Georgians for continuing a principled stand for what is right,” weeks after reporting (12/17/20) that “the secretary has helped fuel suspicions about the integrity of Georgia’s elections.”

For instance, just weeks before an uncritical editorial (1/4/21) praising him, the local Journal-Constitution published a front-page investigation (12/17/20) that found Raffensperger was touting “inflated figures about the number of investigations his office was conducting related to the election, giving those seeking to sow doubt in the outcome a new storyline.” Those claims helped propel the state’s 2020 bill restricting voting rights.

Like Kemp, he launched vote fraud investigations into progressive voter registration groups (AJC11/30/20), and oversaw the purge of nearly 200,000 voters, mostly people of color, from the rolls before the 2020 election (Democracy Now!1/5/21).

During his re-election campaign, Raffensperger had gone on national television (CBS, 1/9/22) to push for a constitutional amendment prohibiting noncitizens from voting in any elections, as well as to praise photo ID requirements for voting and oppose same-day voter registration. He has also called for an expansion of law enforcement presence at polling sites.

In their obsession with Trump’s win/loss record and their desperate search for “moderate” Republicans, journalists whitewash GOP candidates who paved the way for Trumpism and, ultimately, seek the same end—minority rule—by only slightly different means.


Featured image: Reuters (5/24/22) depiction of Donald Trump illustrating the takeaway, “Trump Takes Lumps.”


Reprinted with permission from FAIR.org. FAIR’s work is sustained by our generous contributors, who allow us to remain independent. Donate today to be a part of this important mission.

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Monday, April 21, 2014

The Blackboard Weekly Report - 4/21/14

International
  • Zimbabwe celebrated the 34th anniversary of their independence. See here for the press statement released by Secretary of State John Kerry and a brief summary of their history here from the Government of Zimbabwe.  
  • Professor Hilary Beckles, Chairman of the CARICOM Reparations Commission, is urging young people across the Caribbean to play a role in their reparation struggle. The Jamaican Observer reported Prof. Beckles comments during a lecture: "There are many people in the world who believe that all they have to do is sit quiet and allow the older leaders of this campaign to pass away," he said. "You are the descendants of those who have survived and that gives you, the younger generation, a special responsibility to honour this history."
 White House
  • President Obama: The President held a press conference last week, responding to questions about the Affordable Care Act and the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.   During the press conference, President Obama tells Democrats not to run from health care issue with 2014 mid-term elections approaching. “I think the Democrats should forcefully defend and be proud of the fact that millions of people (have insurance)…I don't think we should apologize for it. I don't think we should be defensive about it…” 
  • Affordable Care Act Update:  The White House announces 8 million have signed up for health insurance via the market exchanges.   
  • Ukraine Crisis Update:  The Guardian reports that US secretary of state John Kerry urged Russia on Monday to meet Ukraine halfway in trying to defuse the crisis. See coverage of the ongoing Ukraine crisis by CNN, The Guardian, and the BBC.
  • Justice Department:  Attorney General Holder announced the Justice Department’s initiative to reduce sentencing disparities for drug offenders in the federal prison system by expanding the criteria for clemency.  “The White House has indicated it wants to consider additional clemency applications, to restore a degree of justice, fairness, and proportionality for deserving individuals who do not pose a threat to public safety.  The Justice Department is committed to recommending as many qualified applicants as possible for reduced sentences.  
  • First Lady: The Washington Post reports that last Thursday, First Lady Michelle Obama  and entertainer Bow Wow joined 37 students from Chicago public high schools for a tour of Howard University.  But the First Lady’s scheduled graduation address in Kansas is causing a stir   - Parents and students alike have expressed anguish that the first lady’s speech and limited seating for families detract from a day that should center on the graduating students and their loved ones.
 National
  • Restoring the right for convicted felons to vote appeared in Virginia and in Iowa. In Virginia, the Governor has signed an executive order enabling an easier process to gain voting rights; drug offenses will no longer be on the list of crimes that need a waiting period, and the waiting period for violent offenders will decrease from 5 years to 3 year.  
  • Meanwhile in Iowa, felons will continue to be disqualified despite a recent Iowa Supreme Court ruling, 5-1 that some felonies may not rise to the level of barring voting rights.
Local
  • New York politico Basil Paterson passed away.  See obituary by Meyer, Suozzi, English and Klein – the firm Mr. Paterson joined in the early 1980’s. See additional coverage in the New York Amsterdam News.  
  • The New York Police Department (NYPD) had dismantled the unit that spied on Muslim communities. The ACLU noted that NYPD spied on their places of worship, and businesses they frequent – based on nothing but their religious beliefs and associations. For additional information see the ACLU’s fact sheet and the Associated Press investigation into NYPD intelligence.


Monday, December 30, 2013

End of year review 2013 - Part I

Although 2013 is behind us now – let’s take a look at some of the more critical issues and developments that occurred during the year. The Blackboard has put together a three-part year end review that briefly outlines these critical issues where the first part takes a look at some of the striking developments within the criminal justice system where many ask the simple question – is it justice or just us?

Trayvon Martin
There was probably no news more stunning than the summer time verdict that let an armed neighborhood watch volunteer for a gated community walk out of court a year after shooting and killing, Trayvon Martin an unarmed African American teenager. Known forever as the Zimmerman verdict – where six jurors decided that George Zimmerman was not guilty of second degree murder and manslaughter charges. Where were you on that Saturday night when the not guilty verdict was read? In the days that followed, hundreds of people took to the streets venting their frustration over the unpopular verdict - and asked the question over and over, “What about justice for Trayvon Martin?” The unpopular Zimmerman verdict resonated so deeply with Blacks because the verdict represented yet another example of racial inequality relegated to those branded as second-class citizens. For many years, the criminal justice system was not color-blind and has been a source of hostile relations; the constitutionality of slavery in prisons, lynching, Scottsboro Boys, Emmitt Till, COINTELPRO, Rodney King beating, disproportionate rates of incarceration, stark disparities in arrests and sentencing, War on drugs, acts police brutality and misconduct legitimized, jury selection process, racial profiling, and stand your ground laws are a few examples. Blacks were particularly incensed because of the collective sentiment feeling that the long history of injustice has repeated itself – again. For a brief moment, there was yet another national conversation about race relations sandwiched in between stand your ground laws and racial profiling that slowly dissolved into muted silence. If nothing else, the Zimmerman verdict brought the stand your ground laws around the country into immediate focus with a spotlight cast on the cases of Marissa Alexander and Jordan Davis.

Voting Rights
But less than a month before the Zimmerman not-guilty verdict, there was an equally stunning decision by the Supreme Court as they struck down a key provision in the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA). As a safeguard against racially discriminatory practices intended to impede voting, the VRA contained a provision requiring nine states to seek “preapproval” or preclearance before any changes to voting laws and procedures are enforced. The Court ruled that preclearance was no longer needed for these nine states; Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia, who are now free to make any changes to their voting laws and procedures. The concern is that although, bills are proposed to the public as measures to restore confidence and integrity in the electoral process by eliminating voter fraud, opponents view them as measures designed to make the voting process harder and more difficult – commonly known as voter suppression laws. Texas and North Carolina have already passed voter suppression laws and each face lawsuits from the Justice Department.

Even before the Supreme Court ruling, in anticipation of the 2012 presidential election, several states proposed voter suppression laws. In the months leading up to the 2012 Presidential election, there were a number of bills proposed and signed into law that, in one form or another applies newly stringent requirements in order for one to exercise their right to vote. Based on the Brennan Center’s analysis of the 19 laws and two executive actions that passed in 14 states by the 2012 election, more than five million eligible voters were impacted with “significantly harder” requirements to cast a vote. In addition, the states that have already cut back on voting rights will provide 185 electoral votes in 2012 – which accounts for more than two thirds of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.

Stop & Frisk
New York City’s controversial policing practice, stop and frisk, was ruled unconstitutional by federal court and upheld by a federal appeals panel when challenged by NYC attorneys. While the data is quite troubling, what is more disturbing – yet not surprising is the steadfast and relentless stream of comments from the out-going Mayor Bloomberg and outgoing NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. The Bloomberg/Kelly narrative defended their use of stop and frisk by using scare tactics and exaggerated language – the return of more guns and street crime – clearly designed to instill fear and anxiety in New Yorkers. The larger question here though is whether Bloomberg/Kelly attempted to gain support for their narrative by injecting racial politics to instill racialized fear. See the Blackboard's post on this issue here.

IRP - 6
This is a case that has managed to escape the bright glare of media attention – despite all the ingredients needed for a story to go viral. For example, this case shows signs of trumped up charges, wrongful convictions, lack of fair play, government interference, and highly questionable incidents such as missing court transcript pages – and not just a few pages – no less than two hundred missing court transcript pages. When you read the information, the question may ultimately come up – where is the media coverage on this issue? While this is a complicated case – once you read through the information – it’s actually not that complicated – injustice never is. It really begs the question that more people should be asking - How come this issue has not gained traction amongst black elected officials – on the local, state and national level, or from civil rights leaders and activists with the backing and support from their civil rights organizations, or from talk-show hosts, investigative journalists, pundits and the like?

So by now you may be asking yourself - exactly what is this case about. Well, the IRP 6 stands for the Investigative Resource Planning Solutions Corporation (known as IRP) and the six men (five who are African American) who have been imprisoned since 2009 – on mail and wire fraud charges. The six imprisoned men are actually executives at IRP – a software development company that started in February 2003. After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, they saw an opportunity as the debate raged on about the inability of government agencies to communicate and share information with one another. While the intelligence community worked to revamp their structure and operations – these IRP executives worked to develop software that would eliminate this communication obstacle among government agencies involved with intelligence. Prospective clients included the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the New York City Police Department (NYPD). Impressive right? IRP was working to customize the software to meet the technology needs for their prospective clients but was faced with difficulties in meeting their staffing bills. IRP had to hire additional temporary staff of information technology (IT)professionals to meet the customized needs – with the expectation they would be landing the big contract but they needed more time to make the sale. But IRP fell behind on bills and these bills became delinquent while they accumulated debt. Sounds like a debt collection case doesn’t it? Instead, they were accused, in federal court, of essentially running a scam with the intention of stealing millions of dollars. Their business offices were also subjected to a SWAT styled raid by at least 20 or so federal agents.

For more information on this case see this for a comprehensive background on the case; see this overview of the case with important details available here and two excellently written stories available here and here. Also see these links for the story on the IRP6 as well as an interview and article written by Mr. David Banks, one of the IRP6

These links will be posted on The Blackboard's resource page as well.