FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 1, 2017
CONTACT:
Carolyn Fiddler
National Communications Director
[email protected]
DLCC Applauds Anti-GOP Gerrymandering SCOTUS Ruling
Courts Deal Yet Another Blow to Republicans’ Use of Race to Silence Voters’ Voices
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee Executive Director Jessica Post applauded the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Board of Elections, a suit against Virginia Republican lawmakers’ unconstitutional use of racial gerrymandering to dilute the influence of African-American voters.
“Virginia Republicans illegally silenced the voices of African-American voters, and today’s ruling is a step towards giving all Virginians fair representation in their government,” said Post. “The district maps engineered by Republican legislators diminished the voices of specific groups of voters just to protect GOP power. This court decision, along with recent rulings in Alabama and Wisconsin, mark important progress in the fight to enfranchise voters and dismantle artificial Republican majorities, and these decisions serve as incontrovertible evidence that Republicans can’t be trusted to protect voters’ rights in the next round of redistricting. DLCC continues our fight to elect more Democratic lawmakers to dislodge map-drawing pens from the grip of the GOP.”
Today’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling is the latest in a series of legal blows to GOP gerrymandering across the country. A Wisconsin decision that ruled the state’s Assembly districts to be unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders calls for new maps to be drawn by November 1, 2017 (it was appealed to SCOTUS on Friday). In late January, a three-judge panel in the 11th Circuit declared 12 of Alabama’s legislative districts (nine House, three Senate) to be unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. We await SCOTUS’s decision regarding whether to take up the North Carolina redistricting case, where 28 legislative districts were found to be unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered. Congressional districts in North Carolina and Virginia have already been struck down for the same reason.
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