Mapping Errors v. Voting Rights Act
My Day (by Dr. J. Ester Davis)
With Barack Obama’s reign as President of the United States for two(2)terms, the maximum, we knew America was changing. O Beautiful! America has been enumerating since birth. Every ten(10)years our constitution dictates a count. After that count, we draw a map or buy new territory. Next is representation of-the people counted. Finally, the signal-of-the count makes up the electoral system. So, what is wrong with that?
Is the Texas redistricting map going in the right direction? How successful will Texas be in reducing the number of districts where Black/Hispanic residents live and make up the majority of eligible voters? Will maps throughout the south be redrawn after the Supreme Court’s surprise ruling on June 8, 2023? Was the recent Supreme Court message loud enough across the deep south?
On the above-mentioned date the United States Supreme Court dismissed a Republican bid to defend a map that was challenged as discriminatory in a case that could lead to the creation of a 2nd majority Black congressional district. Voting rights groups are organizing contending that race is indeed a legitimate factor to consider in redistricting.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 again was placed center of democracy. The impact of that ruling will certainly send some states back to the drawing board….or will it? Make no mistake about it, the prospect of altering the balance of power and undermining voting rights is absolutely a “high-stakes wire act”. People of non-color, wish to remain in power! Despite people of color fueling the growth population for more than ten(10)years, Texas continues to ignore ‘sex-in-the-city’ act of voting. Texas NAACP has called the act outrageous and shocking. LULAC has filed suit against the State of Texas every ten(10)years since 1970 after the census counting. These deliberate acts of tampering are done by politicians who are masters of gerrymandering*.
This Supreme Court ruling written for the majority by Chief Justice John Roberts, referred to the section of the Voting Rights Act that prohibits maps drawn to dilute minority voting strength. This is the signature law Congressman John Lewis spoke of at every opportunity before his death. It was passed in 1965. The law was passed after determined orderly and disorderly demonstrations, beatings, et cetera, blocking voters of color. The concentration was targeted toward African Americans duly in the southern states of this America. This law served as a bulwark against suppression of the vote by voters of color, i.e., Black, Latino and Native Americans.
Sidebar: It has also been ignored by the deep south law makers and ignored by the Supreme Court.
The good news in these ‘mapping errors’ is that the Supreme Court has acted unabashedly this time. Among the primary states with “mapping errors” before the same court for the same reasons are South Carolina, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Texas. The Supreme Court is expected to act on a similar upcoming challenge of election maps pending in Louisiana. We are indeed watching!
Back to the high question of will this ruling and pending rulings send these states back to the drawing board? We are aware, as in my opening statement, that this exercise is driven by the census taken every ten(10)years culminating in a population growth. Additionally, we are mindful that people of color accounted for 95% of Texas’ growth the past ten(10)years. Shamefully, In the new map there is one less Hispanic district and zero district with a Black majority.
By way of an answer, back in 2021, Texas lawmakers proactively released their first draft of the new congressional map. The Texas map and others reduced the number of districts dominated by people of color, while at the same time the population of Blacks, Hispanic and Asian outpaced white Texans. In an article shortly thereafter, President Barack Obama picked up the baton about ‘gerrymandering’. Obama emphasized the importance of redistricting to reflect a changing country in lieu of designing “attempts to codify voting restrictions in state laws”.
Gerrymandering* is a weak but polite term meaning the manipulation by party lines to keep bad and ineffective incumbents in power. It is related to ‘kicking-the-can-down-he road”. Technology is on our side. Just please keep your cell phones looking at potential voting rights act (VRA) districts and ….VOTE!
Esterdavis2000@gmail.com
