The State of Redistricting Litigation (August 2017 Edition) | Brennan Center for Justice
A couple of weeks ago, a family discussion about the usual–the Horror, how it came about, the 2016 election, Hillary, et al–convinced me that the link above is overwhelmingly significant.
My family members are smart and well-informed. Yet I came to think that in describing why everything went haywire and upended our lives, they did not place adequate emphasis on voter suppression tactics and gerrymandering.
One family member pointed out that Democrats gerrymander, too, when they have the state majority.
I failed to mention how the Supreme Court did serious damage to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (you remember: it’s when John Roberts blandly pronounced that our nation had come so far from racism it no longer needed any protections for minority voters. To be fair to Roberts, his grand decision did come before Charlottesville, when white supremacists once against marched around bearing Confederate flags and assault weaponry [thanks to the Second Amendment]). Immediately after Roberts’ decision, the states which had been under mandated supervision–lest they jump back to Jim Crow–produced and enacted laws that suppressed the vote.
So take a look at the Brennan Center’s thorough and current report on what civil rights organizations have been doing. The report gives us the status of the many lawsuits filed against the states that have violated our civil rights.