The American Democracy Minute Radio Report & Podcast for April 5, 2023
Today’s Links
Articles & Resources:
Associated Press – GOP map likely to hinder lone Democrat clears Kansas Senate
Campaign Legal Center – CLC and ACLU Kansas Sue State Over Gerrymandered Congressional Map
CNN – Supreme Court declines to hear Kansas racial gerrymandering case, leaves congressional map in force
U.S. Congress – The Fourteenth Amendment
ACLU – Civil Rights Advocates File Federal Lawsuit Over Mississippi’s Racially Gerrymandered Maps
Mississippi Free Press – Mississippi Racial Gerrymandering Case Dismissed in U.S. Supreme Court
Harvard Law Today – Supreme Court preview: Merrill v. Milligan
League of Women Voters – The Latest Threat to the Voting Rights Act: Merrill v. Milligan
SCOTUS Blog – Conservative justices seem poised to uphold Alabama’s redistricting plan in Voting Rights Act challenge
Democracy Docket – North Carolina Supreme Court Rehears State-Level Redistricting Case Underlying Moore v. Harper
NPR – How a major election theory case at the U.S. Supreme Court could get thrown out
Groups Taking Action:
Campaign Legal Center, ACLU KS, ACLU MS, League of Women Voters US, Common Cause, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, North Carolina League of Conservation Voters
Today’s Script: (Variations occur with audio due to editing for time)
You’re listening to the American Democracy Minute, keeping YOUR government by and for the people.
Is the U.S. Supreme Court where challenges to racial gerrymandering go to die? In two months, the court refused Congressional racial gerrymandering cases from Kansas and Mississippi, and we await decisions in Alabama & North Carolina cases. Nothing less than the voting power of Black Americans is at stake.
Kansas legislators split metro Kansas City into different districts to dilute African American voting power. Voters and democracy groups sued under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, lost in the Kansas Supreme Court, and have now reached a dead end at the U.S. Supreme Court.
In February, SCOTUS declined a Mississippi case where districts were gerrymandered to deprive African American voters of adequate representation. In a state over 41% Black, only one in five of Mississippi’s Congressional districts was a majority Black district.
Two racial gerrymandering cases which WERE heard by the high court are still pending. Merrill v. Milligan challenges maps in Alabama under the Voting Rights Act, where the legislature should have drawn two majority Black districts, but didn’t, claiming redistricting should be race-blind. A reconsideration in North Carolina may make Moore v. Harper moot, but observers think Alabama’s gerrymandering is likely to be upheld, opening the door to even MORE manipulated maps nationwide.
We have links to articles, and groups taking action at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org.
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