• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Independent Voter News
  • Campaign Finance
  • Civic Ed
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Events
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. gerrymandering>

Federal racial gerrymandering cases heat up in three states

David Meyers
https://twitter.com/davidmeyers?lang=en
January 26, 2022
racial gerrymandering court cases
OsakaWayneStudios/Getty Images

Thanks to a 2019 Supreme Court ruling, the federal judiciary has no role in resolving disputes over partisan gerrymandering. But racial gerrymandering remains within the purview of the federal courts, and cases are heating up.

Every 10 years, following the Census Bureau’s counting of the U.S. population, states redraw their legislative and congressional district maps. This redistricting process is supposed to account for population shifts, but both the Democratic and Republican parties have used it to secure as many seats as possible for the following decade.

Legislatures control the redistricting process in more than 30 states, while some states use commissions to draw state lines and a handful have a hybrid system.

There has been legal maneuvering in three states — Alabama, Tennessee and Washington — over the past few days regarding the role race has played in the remapping process.


Alabama

On Monday, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama ordered the Republican-controlled Legislature to redraw the congressional map, ruling the new lines violate the Voting Rights Act. On Tuesday, the state attorney general appealed the ruling.

The court determined that the approved map, in which minorities would only be a majority in one out of the state's seven congressional districts, must be redrawn. Black people represent 27 percent of the state population.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

“The appropriate remedy is a congressional redistricting plan that includes either an additional majority-Black congressional district, or an additional district in which Black voters otherwise have an opportunity to elect a representative of their choice,” the court wrote in its ruling.

Read more about the case.

Tennessee

The state Democratic Party has said it is preparing to file a lawsuit over Tennessee’s new congressional district maps after the GOP-run General Assembly moved forward with a plan that dilutes the minority voting power.

According to the Tennessean, the plan “cracks” Davidson County, which is centered on Nashville, spreading the city’s majority-Black population across three districts. Republicans currently hold seven of the state’s nine congressional districts, and this plan could cement their control over an eighth seat.

“We are extremely concerned that the maps that were drawn reflect not just partisan gerrymandering but racial gerrymandering, which is in direct violation of the [Voting Rights Act],” League of Women Voters of Tennessee President Debbie Gould told WPLN.

Read more about Tennessee redistricting and the pending lawsuit.

Washington

Last week, a collection of voting rights groups filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of eight Latino voters and the Southcentral Coalition of People of Color for Redistricting, arguing the state’s new legislative maps violate the Voting Rights Act by diluting the power of Latino voters.

“The Commission’s approved state legislative district map cracks Latino voters in the Yakima Valley region, diluting their voting strength by placing them in several legislative districts with white voting majorities,” the lawsuit states. “Under the Commission’s approved state legislative district map, Latino voters in the Yakima Valley region will not be able to elect candidates of their choice and the map does not create a district in the Yakima Valley area that complies with the Voting Rights Act.”

UCLA Voting Rights Project, Campaign Legal Center, and Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund filed the case in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington on behalf of the plaintiffs.

“Federal and state courts have twice invalidated election systems that discriminate against Yakima Valley’s Latino voters,” said Mark Gaber, senior director of redistricting for CLC. “The commission’s refusal to learn from these court decisions has necessitated this third lawsuit. The discriminatory voting practices against Latino voters in the Yakima Valley must end.”

Unlike Alabama and Tennessee, where the legislatures control the redistricting process, Washington uses an independent commission.

Read more about the lawsuit.

From Your Site Articles
  • Here's a better solution that current redistricting model - The Fulcrum ›
  • Louisiana's high court a racial gerrymander, federal suit alleges, and ... ›
  • Experts identify the worst examples of gerrymandering - The Fulcrum ›
  • South will be most vulnerable to gerrymandering, report says - The ... ›
  • Common Cause fighting racial and partisan gerrymandering - The Fulcrum ›
  • Gerrymandering (not as fun as it is to say) - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Redistricting and the Supreme Court: The Most Significant Cases ›
  • North Carolina's Racial Gerrymandering Was Unconstitutional - The ... ›
  • How racial gerrymandering deprives black people of political power ... ›
  • What is racial gerrymandering? - Vox ›
gerrymandering

Join an Upcoming Event

STAR Voting California Monthly Meeting

Equal Vote
Dec 04, 2023 at 6:00 pm PDT
Read More

Democracy Happy Hour

Fix Democracy First
Dec 06, 2023 at 5:00 pm PDT
Read More

Advanced Facilitation Skills Workshop

Essential Partners
Dec 07, 2023 at 9:30 am EST
Read More

Designing the Perfect Society (COH) – 1on1 discussion

Citizen Assembly
Dec 08, 2023 at 7:00 pm CDT
Read More

Eugene Public Comment for STAR Voting

Equal Vote
Dec 11, 2023 at 7:00 pm PST
Read More

2023 Speaker Series – Trevor Potter

American Promise
Dec 12, 2023 at 5:00 pm EST
Read More
View All Events

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Confirm that you are not a bot.
×
Follow

Support Democracy Journalism; Join The Fulcrum

The Fulcrum daily platform is where insiders and outsiders to politics are informed, meet, talk, and act to repair our democracy and make it live and work in our everyday lives. Now more than ever our democracy needs a trustworthy outlet

Contribute
Contributors

Our shared humanity and collective responsibility

Jenn Hoos Rothberg

The conservative mind at 70

Michael Lucchese

Fulcrum Rewind: How to get along at Thanksgiving

Debilyn Molineaux
David L. Nevins

How reforming felony murder laws can reduce juvenile justice harms

Margaret Mikulski

What if neither party can govern?

John Opdycke

The case for the 4th, from a part-time American

Flora Roy
latest News

Are state governments ready for today’s unique challenges?

Kevin Frazier
01 December

2024 caucus-primary and general elections controlled by extremists

Steve Corbin
01 December

A crisis creates clarity for donors

Jack Miller
01 December

Generative AI and its rapid incorporation into advertising

Madelyn Sanfilippo
01 December

Don’t soundproof your heart

Tim Shriver
30 November

A new case for electoral reform

Reinhold Ernst
30 November
Videos
Who is the new House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson?

Who is the new House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson?

Our Staff
Video: Jordan bully tactics backfire, provoke threats and harassment of fellow Republicans

Video: Jordan bully tactics backfire, provoke threats and harassment of fellow Republicans

Our Staff
Video Rewind: Reflection on Indigenous Peoples' Day with Rev. F. Willis Johnson

Video Rewind: Reflection on Indigenous Peoples' Day with Rev. F. Willis Johnson

Our Staff
Video: The power of young voices

Video: The power of young voices

Our Staff
Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

Our Staff
Video: Do white leaders hinder black aspirations?

Video: Do white leaders hinder black aspirations?

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Dr. F Willis Johnson in rich conversation with Steve Lawler

Lennon Wesley III
29 November

Podcast: Dr. F. Willis Johnson in a rich conversation with Patrick McNeal

Our Staff
14 November

Podcast: Better choices, better elections

Our Staff
23 October

Podcast: Are state legislators really accountable to their voters?

Our Staff
06 October
Recommended
Are state governments ready for today’s unique challenges?

Are state governments ready for today’s unique challenges?

State
2024 caucus-primary and general elections controlled by extremists

2024 caucus-primary and general elections controlled by extremists

Elections
A crisis creates clarity for donors

A crisis creates clarity for donors

Big Picture
Generative AI and its rapid incorporation into advertising

Generative AI and its rapid incorporation into advertising

Technology
Don’t soundproof your heart

Don’t soundproof your heart

Big Picture
Our shared humanity and collective responsibility

Our shared humanity and collective responsibility

Big Picture