{"id":41550,"date":"2021-10-27T12:17:19","date_gmt":"2021-10-27T19:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=41550"},"modified":"2021-10-27T12:17:19","modified_gmt":"2021-10-27T19:17:19","slug":"activists-target-roadblocks-to-fair-redistricting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=41550","title":{"rendered":"ACTIVISTS TARGET ROADBLOCKS TO FAIR REDISTRICTING"},"content":{"rendered":"
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by\u00a0Mark Hedin<\/a><\/span>\u00a0|\u00a0Oct 27, 2021<\/span>\u00a0|\u00a0Redistricting<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Clockwise from top left: Ashley Shelton, Executive Director, Power Coalition; Evan Milligan, Executive Director, Alabama Forward; Mon\u00e9 Holder, Senior Director of Advocacy & Programs, Florida Rising; Jamara Wilson, Redistricting Program Manager, Equal Ground; Karuna Ramachandran, Director of Statewide Partnerships, Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Southern states no longer have to clear new maps<\/em><\/p>\n

By Mark Hedin, Ethnic Media Services<\/strong><\/p>\n

At a webinar in late October, community activists working in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Alabama discussed the challenges and importance of the redistricting process that will affect people\u2019s voting power and rights of self-determination for the next 10 years.<\/p>\n

Although redistricting may at first seem removed from the day-to-day concerns of the public, in fact, it\u2019s fundamental to how the U.S. government functions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way our local districts are drawn today is crucial for our communities\u2019 future,\u201d moderator Jennifer Farmer said in introducing the panelists. \u201cIt determines our say in who represents us and what resources we get, including funding for schools, parks, libraries, hospitals and social services.\u201d<\/p>\n

Furthermore, she added, district maps enacted this year will not only come into play in next year\u2019s election, they\u2019ll remain in place until after the next national census, in 2030, provides an update on data about who lives where, and thus what regions warrant more \u2013 or less \u2013 political clout.<\/p>\n

Based on U.S. constitutional promises of equal representation, redistricting and its implications are one of the arguments activists made in urging people to be counted in the 2020 Census \u2013 that new population data gathered in the decennial census drives crucial decision-making for the next decade.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are picking right up from our census work, and moving right into redistricting,\u201d said panelist Ashley Shelton, executive director of Louisiana\u2019s\u00a0Power Coalition for Equity and Justice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got just one shot at trying to increase voice in a state that has the second-largest black population and more than 40% communities of color,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Redistricting is intended to ensure equal representation and to counter the so-called \u201cgerrymandering\u201d process by which incumbent politicians choose who they\u2019ll represent, rather than the voters choosing who will represent them.<\/p>\n

Historically, incumbents of all parties have \u201cpacked\u201d or \u201ccracked\u201d communities to limit their power, either by concentrating communities into a single district even though their numbers are strong enough to sway elections in multiple districts, or by splitting those communities among several districts to the point that the community can\u2019t sway any.<\/p>\n

Maps drawn with such intent that survived the legislative process have, in some instances, been struck down by courts.<\/p>\n

But this year is the first time since the 1965 Voting Rights Act became law that the U.S. Justice Department will not be reviewing changes in election processes in historically discriminatory states to make sure they\u2019re being fairly applied.<\/p>\n

This is because since the last round of redistricting, following the 2010 Census, the U.S. Supreme Court, in its 2013\u00a0Shelby County (AL) vs. Holder<\/a>\u00a0decision, ruled the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act\u2019s Section 5 that mandated \u201cpreclearance\u201d by the Justice Department of significant proposed changes was no longer necessary.<\/p>\n

As a result, said Evan Milligan, executive director of\u00a0Alabama Forward<\/a>, \u201cWe don\u2019t have the mechanisms that we once did to hold our governments to account, at least in terms of the Department of Justice. So that leaves us in a more vulnerable position than we\u2019ve been in previously.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among its efforts, Milligan said, Alabama Forward has been offering trainings on\u00a0maptitude<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0and other tools \u201cthat most of our legislatures are using\u201d on how to place data into visual maps to propose fair districts.<\/p>\n

In all four of the states under discussion at the Oct. 26 event, the redistricting process is done by the state legislature, with the governor having the power to veto maps the legislature approves.<\/p>\n

Florida, Georgia, and Alabama, however, are so-called \u201ctrifecta\u201d states in which one political party \u2013 the Republican Party, in these cases \u2014 holds both the governor\u2019s office and majority control of the state legislature.<\/p>\n

In Louisiana, where state government is divided between the major parties, it\u2019s possible that the GOP advantage in the state legislature is enough that it could override Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards if he were to veto their new map proposals.<\/p>\n

Florida\u2019s population has grown to the extent that it gained a new seat in Congress. State law does not require public input in the redistricting process, and in the past, courts have had to intervene when the proposed maps seemed unfair.<\/p>\n

Florida Rising<\/a>\u00a0and its partners have been demanding transparency in the redistricting process, and launched a website for Florida-specific comment that also offers a mapping program to solicit community map proposals. It provides outreach materials in Spanish, Haitian-Creole and English, the organization\u2019s Mone Holder said.<\/p>\n

Jamara Wilson, of\u00a0Equal Ground<\/a>\u00a0out of Orlando, FL, also cited using multilingual approaches to communicating, educating and including more people in the redistricting process.<\/p>\n

\u201cFolks really don\u2019t know what their role is in the redistricting process, or how they can contribute to the process or how they are impacted,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Karuna Ramachandran\u2019s\u00a0Georgia Redistricting Alliance<\/a>\u00a0is another veteran of the 2020 Census complete count campaign, which documented how most population growth in the United States over the past decade has been among communities of color, who are now the majority in Georgia.<\/p>\n

She spoke of how even in our pandemic-challenged era, public involvement and engagement in the public hearings on redistricting has been strong, perhaps exceeding some expectations.<\/p>\n

But it remains to be seen, she said, if the legislature\u2019s maps will reflect that community input. In the past, Georgia\u2019s proposed new maps always ran afoul of the Voting Rights Act \u201cpreclearance\u201d requirement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Mark Hedin\u00a0|\u00a0Oct 27, 2021\u00a0|\u00a0Redistricting Clockwise from...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41551,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41550\/revisions\/41551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}