This article discusses Gerrymandering by the party that held the majority after the last census, when most maps were redrawn. The LWV opposes gerrymandering by any party for any reason.
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Want to dismantle structural racism in the US? Help fight Gerrymandering by Meaghan Winter
August 21, 2020
Whichever party wins biggest in state races in November will be able to tip the political scales until 2031. In 35 states, the state legislature draws new district maps every 10 years. In many, congressional and state legislative district maps are drawn with highly sophisticated computer programs designed to rig the system for the incumbent political party. Politicians effectively pick their voters...
Unfair maps are a major form of structural racism hiding in plain sight. In recent redistricting plans, Republicans have “packed” and “cracked” Black communities to secure their advantage. By rigging the system to reduce Democratic representation and keep incumbents in office, gerrymandered maps dilute the voting power of people of color and their neighbors. Those voters have little recourse when lawmakers pass or refuse to overturn state-level policies that hurt people of color...
As the pandemic and its economic fallout have devastated our nation, we have seen the real-life repercussions of Republican gerrymanders. In Florida, Republican lawmakers declined to expand Medicaid, leaving roughly 800,000 low-income Floridians without health insurance. In 2013, after organizers in Orange county succeeded in winning support for local ordinances that guaranteed workers paid sick days, the state legislature passed a law preventing local municipalities from passing their own paid sick leave policies. The wildfire spread of Covid-19 has made obvious how harmful it is to require low-income workers to choose between staying home when they’re sick and keeping their jobs...
Remedies to our nation’s many forms of systemic injustice often feel so enormous as to be out of reach. But there are actions we can all take to minimize unfair gerrymanders and to reform state policies. You can support efforts like the National Redistricting Action Fund, which aims to end partisan gerrymandering, or groups like Sister District, which organizes volunteers to elect Democrats to state legislative seats. You can find your local candidate and volunteer. In local races, whatever time or money you have to give will go far...
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The House members already facing the redistricting chopping block by ALLY MUTNICK
The decennial process will produce hundreds of new congressional districts, turning safe seats into hotly contested battlegrounds, forcing colleagues into cutthroat internecine wars and spurring a cascade of early retirements. Ultimately it will determine the balance of power in Congress for the next decade, and both parties are gearing up for the fight...
This redraw will be most painful in the roughly ten states which are on track to lose a district, particularly ones with smaller populations. That could mean bare-knuckled maneuvering between the two Democrats in Rhode Island and three Republicans in West Virginia — states likely to drop a seat.
Here are the members who are already most at risk in the redraw, according to interviews with more than a dozen lawmakers, operatives and map makers in both parties across seven states.
Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.)
Rhode Island’s two House districts are likely to merge ahead of the next midterm, putting the state’s two Democratic congressmen in an awkward spot.
Reps. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) and Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.)
One of the three members of West Virginia’s congressional delegation will find themselves without a perch in Congress in 2022, when the three vertically stacked districts condense into two.
Reps.-elect Barry Moore (R-Ala.) and Jerry Carl (R-Ala.)
The GOP has total control over redistricting because it has control of both state legislative chambers and the governorship in Alabama, but the state’s lone Democrat, Rep. Terri Sewell, holds a district protected by the Voting Rights Act. So one of the state's six Republicans is on the chopping block when it sheds a seat in 2022.
Reps. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) and Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.)
Democrats will again have total control over the crafting of Illinois’s congressional map — and, if possible, they’ll want to take out GOP Rep. Illinois is on track to drop a district, and Reps. Cheri Bustos and Lauren Underwood, who just barely survived their own 2020 reelections, could struggle to find enough Democratic-friendly voters in northern Illinois to secure them both.
Rep.-elect Michelle Fischbach (R-Minn.) and Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.)
It’s unclear whether Minnesota will lose one of its eight seats in the next census. But because Democrats failed to reclaim the GOP-held state Senate on Election Day, it’s highly likely the courts play a role, adding an extra layer of unpredictability
Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.) and Rep.-elect Carolyn Bourdeaux (D-Ga.)
Georgia's delegation is likely holding at 14 districts. But Republicans, who have total control over the process, will want to address the ticking time bomb north of Atlanta. Rapid diversification and Trump-era devastation in the suburbs deprived Republicans of two House seats that were once GOP bastions, and it's safe to bank on them trying to get back at least one of the districts.
Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.)
Democrats failed to break Republicans’ supermajority in the Kansas state legislature, weakening Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s ability to stop an unfavorable new map.
PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINK TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/30/house-congressional-redistricting-danger-441313
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