June, 27 2019, 12:00am EDT
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For Immediate Release
Contact:
David Vance (202) 736-5712Â Â Â dvance@commoncause.orgÂ
Jay Riestenberg (513) 607-9343, jriestenberg@commoncause.org Â
Kati Phillips (773) 392-3809, kphillips@commoncause.orgÂ
Supreme Court Ducks Responsibility to End Gerrymandering
Common Cause Vows to Reform State by State
WASHINGTON
Today the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision in two landmark redistricting cases, Rucho v. Common Cause and Lamone v. Benisek. In a 72-page decision written by Justice Roberts, the majority concluded it could not set a constitutional standard against partisan gerrymandering.
Statement from Common Cause President Karen Hobert Flynn:
"Today, five Supreme Court Justices turned their backs on hundreds of thousands of people in Maryland and North Carolina stripped of their voice in Washington by power-hungry politicians. The Supreme Court had the opportunity to end partisan gerrymandering once and for all but instead a narrow majority chose to wash their hands of the undemocratic practice.
"Without recourse to the Supreme Court, the American people must continue to take the battle to the state courts, to the polls, and to the streets, to make their voices heard and to end partisan gerrymandering once and for all."
"This decision is part of a disturbing pattern from the Roberts Court of undercutting or eviscerating reforms passed by Congress to protect the integrity of our democracy. This Supreme Court has gutted the landmark Voting Rights Act, shredded campaign finance limits in Citizens United, and now it has condoned extreme partisan gerrymandering."
Statement from Common Cause North Carolina Executive Director Bob Phillips:
"This ruling is a bitter disappointment. And make no mistake about it, there are victims of this decision. The victims are those North Carolinians who do not have a voice in Washington because the Supreme Court has condoned an abusive partisan gerrymander. Legislators freely and publicly admitted that their goal was to carve out and hold a 10-3 advantage in U.S. House seats for their own party despite the fact that the votes cast in those races would split nearly down the middle.
We will continue to seek justice for the people of our state through our challenge of partisan gerrymandering of legislative districts as a violation of the North Carolina Constitution. We are confident that justice will prevail in the North Carolina courts and we will continue to work with state lawmakers to pass legislation to reform our broken redistricting system that has left far too many without a voice in Raleigh."
Statement from Common Cause National Redistricting Director Kathay Feng:
"In a democracy, voters should choose their politicians, not the other way around, on Election Day.
"But the Supreme Court today gave the green light to the most extreme partisan gerrymanders, where legislators openly boasted about their partisan motives, stripping not only the people of North Carolina and Maryland, but all Americans, of the right to fair representation.
"To bring about fair maps, the people must continue to make their voice heard through ballot initiatives, new state laws, and appeals to state courts to reform the redistricting process.
State Litigation and Reforms
Common Cause will continue to pursue an end to gerrymandering through state litigation. Common Cause filed a legal challenge to the North Carolina state legislative maps in the Superior Court Division of Wake County, North Carolina. The case, Common Cause v. Lewis, goes to trial on July 15, 2019.
After some of the state House and state Senate districts were struck down as unconstitutional racial gerrymanders in 2017, Republican leaders redrew districts on partisan grounds. The state GOP won substantially more seats in the 2018 elections even though Democrats got more votes.
Common Cause sued on the grounds that the 2017 plans are unconstitutional, invalid and impervious to the will of the voters. Common Cause asked the state court to rule that partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional, to prevent the defendants from using the 2017 Plans for the 2020 primary and general elections, and to establish new plans for the 2020 elections that comply with the state constitution.
Unlike the Supreme Court, lower courts have ruled against gerrymanders. Over 38 percent of state and congressional district maps drawn by politicians in the 2010-cycle were either struck down by courts or drawn by courts when politicians failed to draw maps, compared to just 11 percent of those drawn by independent citizen commissions with partisan balance.
Common Cause is working in multiple states to pass reforms in advance of the 2020 census, which triggers the once-in-a-decade redistricting process.
States including Arkansas and Oregon are eyeing the 2020 ballot with proposals for impartial, citizen-led commissions. Minnesota and Pennsylvania are working on redistricting legislation. And California is taking its redistricting reforms to the county and city level.
***MEDIA CALL TODAY***
Common Cause and the League of Women Voters of North Carolina will hold a conference call today to take questions on the decision.
TIME: 12:00 p.m. ET
NUMBER: 800-289-0459, Passcode 873140
Common Cause is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization dedicated to upholding the core values of American democracy. We work to create open, honest, and accountable government that serves the public interest; promote equal rights, opportunity, and representation for all; and empower all people to make their voices heard in the political process.
(202) 833-1200LATEST NEWS
US Voter Registrations Surge as Republicans Try to Limit Ballot Access
One group said it has registered over 100,000 new voters since U.S. President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race.
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The group behind a popular get-out-the-vote technology platform said Friday that it's registered more than 100,000 new U.S. voters since President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race, a surge that came amid mounting Republican efforts to make it harder to register and vote.
Vote.org said that 84% of voters registered in the new wave are under age 35. Nearly 1 in 5 new registrees is 18 years old. Andrea Hailey, the group's CEO, said that "since 2020, we have led the largest voter registration drive in U.S. history," with more than 7.8 million people registered.
After dropping out, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to face former Republican President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) in the November election. The new presumptive Democratic candidate has already earned endorsements from many Democrats in Congress and groups advocating on issues including climate, labor, and reproductive rights.
Vote.org's success comes as Republicans at the federal level are proposing and passing legislation creating obstacles to the ballot box.
Earlier this month, U.S. House Republicans passed Rep. Chip Roy's (R-Texas)
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However, Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.)
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Lee said the SAVE Act underscores the need to pass her recently introduced Right to Vote Act, "which would establish the first-ever affirmative federal voting rights guarantee, ensuring every citizen may exercise their fundamental right to cast a ballot."
Earlier this year, U.S. Senate Democrats also reintroduced the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, legislation its sponsors say will "update and restore critical safeguards of the original Voting Rights Act."
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Again under the guise of preventing fraud, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last year signed legislation limiting voter registration drives, with fines of up to $250,000 for violators.
"These draconian laws and rules are like taking a sledgehammer to hit a flea," Cecile Scoon, an attorney and president of the Florida chapter of the League of Women Voters,
toldThe New York Times in an article published Friday.
Three years after Kansas passed a law making "false representation" of an election official a crime, campaigners say it's become extremely difficult to sign up new voters.
"In 2020, even with the pandemic, we had registered nearly 10,000 Kansans to vote. Now, we haven't been able to register anyone," Davis Hammet, president of the youth voter mobilization group Loud Light, told the Times.
In Louisiana, Republican state lawmakers quietly passed legislation making it easier for election officials to toss out absentee ballots with missing details, limiting how people can mail in other voters' ballots, and restricting the ability to assist people with disabilities with their ballots.
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In Nebraska, Republican Secretary of State Bob Evnen last week
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"We refuse to accept thousands of Nebraskans having their voting rights stripped away," ACLU of Nebraska legal and policy fellow Jane Seu said in a statement. "We are confident in the constitutionality of these laws, and we are exploring every option to ensure that Nebraskans who have done their time can vote."
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Climate and environmental defenders on this week implored U.S. senators to block a permitting reform bill introduced this week by Sens. Joe Manchin and John Barrasso that campaigners linked to Project 2025, a conservative coalition's agenda for a far-right overhaul of the federal government.
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"This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
These are nearly identical policies to what's proposed in Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership. The plan, which was spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, calls for "unleashing all of America's energy resources," including by ending federal restrictions on fossil fuel drilling on public lands; limiting investments in renewable energy; and rolling back environmental permitting restrictions for new oil, gas, and coal projects, including power plants.
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Hartl added that "to preserve a livable planet," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) "must squash this legislation now."
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NRDC managing director of government affairs Alexandra Adams said Wednesday that "this bill is a giveaway for the oil and gas industry that will ramp up drilling and environmental destruction at a time when we need to be putting a hard stop to fossil fuels."
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Sudan's military is blocking United Nations aid trucks from entering at a key border crossing, causing severe disruptions in aid in a country that experts fear may be on the brink of one of the worst famines the world has seen in decades, The New York Timesreported Friday.
The border city of Adré in eastern Chad is the main international crossing into the Darfur region of Sudan, but the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the state's official military, which is engaged in a civil war with a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has refused to issue permits for U.N. trucks to enter there, as it's an RSF-controlled area.
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Last week, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United States ambassador to the U.N., said that the SAF's obstruction of the border was "completely unacceptable."
Both warring parties in Sudan continue to perpetrate brazen atrocities, including starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. This piece focuses on the SAF's ongoing obstruction of essential aid. The situation is catastrophic. The policy is criminal. https://t.co/FKhqQh3EI9.
— Tom Dannenbaum (@tomdannenbaum) July 26, 2024
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Another mother, Dahabaya Ibet, said that her 20-month-old boy had to bear witness to his grandfather being shot and killed in front of his eyes when the family home in Darfur was attacked by gunmen late last year.
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Sudan's civil war has seen a great deal of international interference. Amnesty International on Thursday published an investigatory briefing showing that weapons from Russia, China, Serbia, Turkey, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had been identified in the country. And The Guardian on Friday reported that the passports of Emirati citizens had been found among wreckage in Sudan, indicating the UAE may have troops or intelligence officers on the ground, though the UAE denied the accusation.
The International Service for Human Rights on Friday warned that both the SAF and RSF were engaged in wrongful killings and arrests, especially targeted at lawyers, doctors, and activists. The group called for an immediate cease-fire.
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