According to the Associated Press, the recent rezoning of North Carolina may lead to what experts call “overloaded constituencies.”
This Republican-majority state completed the process of re-division of constituencies last week, which happens every ten years. However, it drew major criticism for dividing most Democratic cities to increase the number of Republican voting districts. Experts say that this type of pressurized sorting is the result of fewer legal restrictions and higher political risks.
“Without reform, the overall constituency division is worse than in 2010,” said Chris Warshaw, who has analyzed the redistribution of maps across the United States as a political scientist for decades. George Washington University.
Fourteen states have adopted new congressional maps, of which North Carolina is the latest.with Republicans Controlling the line drawing process in states with 187 seats in the House of Representatives, the Republican Party may have a large number of district votes.
Kelly Ward Burton, executive director of the National Democratic Redistribution Committee, told The Associated Press: “In a nutshell, you see Republicans in Grimand.” “They are fighting for power. Congress The whole decade. “
However, Democratic Party It is also possible to try to classify, as in the case of Illinois. Its most recent map has been criticized for its potential gerrymander. Maryland Democrats are also considering making a new map to make it easier for Republican Rep. Andy Harris to be rejected.
Gerrymandering is largely referred to as the process by which politicians draw constituency lines. These constituency lines either gather regions together or divide them into several regions. The process may also deprive the community of representation at the state and national levels.
For more reports from the Associated Press, please see below.
Mitch Wales/Montgomery Advertiser via The Associated Press, file
North Carolina is still a perennial battlefield, and there are differences between the Democratic and Republican parties in the election.In the last presidential race, the Republican Party Donald Trump Win by a margin of slightly more than 1 percentage point-this is self Barack Obama Barely won the state in 2008.
Republicans have led the re-division of constituencies in the past decade, helping them to establish a greater political advantage in more states than any party in the past 50 years.
The map production process has only lasted for three months, and it is too early to know which side will be on top.The Republicans only need a net increase of five seats to control the U.S. House of Representatives and effectively freeze the president Joe BidenAn agenda on climate change, economics and other issues.
But the potential net benefit of the Republican Party’s three seats in North Carolina may be completely offset in Illinois. The Democrats who control the legislature adopted a map whose lines meander across the state like a snake to attract Democratic voters and demote Republicans to several districts.
The cumulative effect is basically a baptism for Republicans and Democrats, leaving only a few areas to be tossed. This situation may change in the coming weeks, as the Republican-controlled legislature is considering a map of Democratic seats in Georgia, New Hampshire, and Ohio.
Ohio Republicans took a particularly ambitious approach. They proposed a map that, with Trump winning by 8 percentage points, the state might allow the Democrats to win only 2 out of 15 states. Seats.
Former Attorney General Eric HolderLeading the efforts of the Democratic Party and calling for more states to use the redivision committee. The Democratic Party’s election bill Senate They will be authorized nationwide. Democratic-controlled states such as Colorado and Virginia recently passed committees, causing some in the party to worry that it is giving up its ability to confront Republicans.
After the power-sharing agreement between Oregon and Republicans fell into a deadlock, the Democrats quickly redrawn the state’s congressional map, so all but the six constituencies tended to their way.
Since 2010, the legal landscape has changed, making it more difficult to challenge gerrymander.Although the use of maps to weaken the power of specific races or ethnic groups is still illegal, conservatives in the United States are in the majority Supreme Court Ruled that several states no longer need to run maps by the United States Ministry of Justice Confirm that they did not treat minorities unfairly in accordance with the requirements of Article 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The High Court also ruled that the Federal Court cannot overthrow party constituencies.
“It’s more challenging between the loss of Article 5 and the obvious partisan scuffle in the federal courts,” said Alison Riggs, chief voting advisor for the Southern Social Justice League, which is suing North Carolina. The state blocked its new map.
The newly adopted congressional maps of Indiana, Arkansas, and Alabama all maintain the existing advantages of the Republican Party. Of the 17 U.S. House of Representatives seats in these states, only 3 are held by Democrats, which seems unlikely to change. In Indiana, the new map focuses the Democrats in the Indianapolis area. In Arkansas, a Republican plan to separate black Democratic voters in Little Rock was disturbed even by the Republican governor, who took effect without his signature. In Alabama, a Democratic group filed a lawsuit, claiming that the map “strategicly cracked and crowded the black communities in Alabama, weakening the voting power of blacks.”
In Utah on Wednesday, the Republican-controlled state legislature approved a map that would transform a swing zone in the suburbs of Salt Lake City into a Republican security seat and sent it to Governor Spencer J. Cox for his signature.
Although the courts may not always check gerrymanders, they are limited by demographic data.
For example, in Texas, the U.S. Census Bureau found that the state was growing so fast, so it won two new seats in the House of Representatives. Approximately 95% of the growth came from black, Latino, and Asian residents who tend to vote for the Democratic Party. The legislature controlled by the Republican Party drew a map. Although it did not create new electoral districts guided by these elections, it still maintained the advantages of the Republican Party. Civil rights organizations have filed a lawsuit to stop it.
Republicans in North Carolina took a different approach, just as they did ten years ago. In the last cycle, the court first discovered that Republican legislators had crowded too many black voters into two congressional districts, and then ruled that they illegally manipulated and replaced the lines on the map for partisan interests.
Due to population growth, the new North Carolina map adds a 14th district to the state and is already facing lawsuits. Experts say that if the old rules are in place, it is unlikely that they will be approved by the Justice Department, especially because it endangers the seat of black congressman and Democratic representative GK Butterfield.
“It raises a lot of red flags,” said Michael Lee, a lawyer at the Brennan Justice Center.
Tim Moore, the Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives and Republican, said he believes these maps are “constitutional in every way.”
