A month after the U.S. Supreme Court decision that weakened the federal Voting Rights Act, voting rights advocates are sharpening their messaging.
The April 29 Callais ruling invalidated a majority-minority congressional district in Louisiana, prompting Republican-led legislatures in Tennessee, Alabama and Florida to rush to redraw congressional maps to be more favorable to their party ahead of the November midterm elections.
Sarah Ovaska with the Southern Leadership for Voter Engagement Network says this kind of “frenzied power grab” is not normal.
“And this has not happened without massive and widespread resistance,” said Ovaska in a Wednesday media briefing. “We have seen in Tennessee and Louisiana activists and protesters and organizers make sure that they are at the legislature to bear witness to what is happening, even when we had sessions going throughout the night.”
But Ovaska says there is real concern that town councils, local school boards and judicial maps could be redrawn next in ways that could lock communities of color out of the voting process, or lock out their ability to elect candidates of their choice.
Congressman Richard Hudson (NC-09), chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, has voiced support for the drawing of new maps, arguing that for too long activists have manipulated the redistricting process. Hudson said the Callais ruling “restores fairness, strengthens confidence in our elections, and ensures every voter is treated equally under the law.”
Cate Mayer, founder and executive director of Be The Ones (Photo: Screenshot from press event)In South Carolina, the partisan power grab was stopped this week in the state Senate because the plan to redraw the congressional maps faced both political pushback and a groundswell of early in-person voting.
Cate Mayer, founder and executive director of Be The Ones, a nonpartisan youth voting organization in South Carolina, believes constituents delivered a strong rebuke to the rushed redistricting effort.
“This is the first time in the four years that we have been in this state that I have seen this kind of momentum,” said Mayer. “We had students, mayors, city council and town council members. We had artists, parents, first-time advocates all come together and clearly say that our communities are not pieces on a political chessboard. Our voices matter.”
More than 56,000 South Carolina voters cast ballots Tuesday, the first day of early voting, smashing all previous turnout records in the state’s history.
“Despite enormous political pressure, despite attempts to rush and silence this process, South Carolinians pushed back, communities organized and at the end of the day the lawmakers felt that pressure and stood back,” said Mayer.
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Mayer said while they celebrate this victory, they must continue to educate voters that the fight is far from over. The congressional maps will be a priority for the South Carolina House and Senate when they come back in January. School board districts could also be in play.
“Equally important is that South Carolina is only one of two states in the country where our lawmakers elect our judges,” Mayer said. “We see at this moment the importance of the courts in protecting our voting rights.”
Mayer said her nonprofit is helping communities connect the dots between what is on their ballot and the systems that shape their lives.
Helen Butler, executive director of the Georgia Coalition for the Peoples’ Agenda, says her organization is working to educate Georgians of color and underrepresented communities about what fair representation means and why these maps matter.
Helen Butler, executive director of the Georgia Coalition for the Peoples’ Agenda (Photo: Screenshot from event)Butler believes the downstream impact of the Callais decision could be “catastrophic” for Georgia.
She projects communities of color could potentially lose two congressional seats, as well as potentially eight state Senate seats and 17 state House seats, using this new criteria of partisanship.
“It may be lines [on a map], but it really is lives that are at stake, because the people that make the lines and laws impact everything that happens to you in your life,” said Butler.
Butler is hustling to share that message. Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has called a June 17 special session to redraw that state’s political maps for the 2028 election cycle.
Letetia Daniels Jackson is the convener of the South Alabama Black Women’s Roundtable (Courtesy photo)In the Deep South, Letetia Daniels Jackson with the South Alabama Black Women’s Roundtable was a plaintiff in the 2023 Allen v. Milligan case, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Alabama’s congressional redistricting map likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
“We are fighting and we will continue to fight,” Jackson said.
These days, Jackson is focused on infrequent voters and helping the next generation see they have a role in the redistricting battle.
“The civil rights movement, those were young people. They were not 70 and 80 and 90 years old. They were all young people,” said Jackson.
Jackson wants young voters who only pay attention during presidential election years to understand how much power their vote holds in deciding local matters, including where their tax dollars are spent.
“You have got to be involved on the local level. You’ve got to vote in every single election,” Jackson told NC Newsline.
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