State Senator Curt Thompson's
Monthly News Letter
September 2011 Vol. 9
Dear Friends and Neighbors,
I hope the start of the school year is treating everyone well. Despite the changes in traffic, I'm enjoying the small hints of cooler weather that's in store for us, even though they are tantalizingly brief.
The General Assembly of Georgia has finally finished the once-in-a-decade process of redistricting. It’s been my first time through the process from a legislators standpoint and I have to say it is very invigorating, almost like a morning run through acid rain. However, for better or worse, we find ourselves with a set of state Senate, state House, and national Congressional maps created by Republicans that are almost certain to be signed by Governor Deal. So where so we go from here?
The next step is preclearance at the Department of Justice. Georgia is one of the states covered under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 5 essentially states that those areas that are subject to it have to have their maps checked out due to their histories with minority voting abuses. There are a few methods available to satisfy this requirement, each with their own political calculus, but Governor Deal has signaled that he is going to hand the maps over to the Department of Justice. This method is one of the fastest, having a turn-around of 60 days. The maps will be cleared by the Department of Justice if they show one thing: that they don’t retrogress. Retrogression is when minority representation in a state is reduced. Georgia’s maps will have to show that the Republican maps don’t do that.
This is where things get… invigorating. I have to ask y’all to bear with me as I throw a few definitions out there. A majority-minority district is where one minority is the majority of the voting age population and therefore able to elect a candidate of their choice. A crossover district is where one minority is not a majority of the voting age population, but is of such a large size that when they partner with a part of the majority they are able to elect a candidate of their choice, such as in a 40% African-American district. A coalition district is similar, except that instead of partnering with white folk, different minorities are able to partner with each other to elect a candidate of their choice. The idea of “candidate of their choice” is important, since the current version of the VRA states that “voting changes that leave a minority group less able elect a preferred candidate of choice, either directly or coalesced with other voters, cannot be precleared under Section 5”.
The Republicans have argued since day one that their maps are not retrogressive. The Republican maps, when compared with the current ones, keep the same amount of majority-minority House districts, and in fact even create one more majority-minority Senate district than before. While this is persuasive on the surface, the argument doesn’t take every part of redistricting case law into account. The concept of crossover and coalition districts is ignored in the Republican maps. For example, the current maps that the Georgia State Senate uses had 14 majority-minority districts while the new Republican ones have 15, but the current maps had 7 crossover/coalition districts as well, while the new Republican ones have kept none of them. Essentially, those who have written these maps have said that the only types of districts that elect a minority voters candidate of choice are majority-minority districts.
But this isn’t true, as Georgians attest to during every election season we’ve have. The Supreme Court agrees. In fact, the main case that the Republican counsel drawing these maps has used in support of their strategy of keeping only majority-minority districts alive, Bartlett vs. Strickland, says that the results of that case “should not be interpreted to entrench majority-minority districts by statutory command.” Furthermore, it states that if “there were a showing that a State intentionally drew district lines in order to destroy otherwise effective crossover districts, that would raise serious questions under both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.” Considering that the Republican Whip in the House essentially said that this was the Republican strategy both in speeches and through emails, it seems like there is such a showing.
Therefore, as these maps go into the preclearance stage, there are serious issues hovering over them. Crossover and coalition districts are protected by all of the law applicable to redistricting, yet they have been discarded and ignored under the current Republican maps. This speaks to a larger issue about race and politics. The Voting Rights Act was created in order to heal the wounds that were created by racial injustice and suppression, encouraging minority participation in politics in the hope that not only would minority voices be heard but also that the color of one’s skin would eventually have no say in how one voted. Crossover and coalitions are the next step of this ideal that we are striving for, and they should not be abandoned for partisan reasons.
It’s not hard to see how partisan redistricting can be. After all, whenever a Democrat speaks up for the Voting Rights Act, it’s seen as a defense of the Democratic Incumbent Protection Act instead. Republicans in Georgia have removed crossover and coalition districts from their maps because those districts elect Democrats, and they have the map drawing power to change that. But in this country, you don’t twist law in order to get the result you want. You work for it. The voting power of black citizens and of Spanish-speaking citizens is NOT owned by the Democratic Party. It’s NOT exclusive to the Democratic Party. Sure, minority districts vote for Democrats. They vote for us quite often. That doesn’t mean Republicans should throw away the weighty history of the Civil Rights movement when flexing their statewide-majority muscles. It means that Republicans should be going out there and wooing the minorities in the districts that they want to win, not just the majority. If they want the black vote, then they should be out in black communities, listening to their unique struggles. If they want the Latino vote, they should be out in Latino communities doing the same. Us Democrats will be waiting for them, and we welcome the challenge of debating their issues right on those communities’ doorsteps. And if certain Republicans don’t feel that they are able to represent those minority communities well enough to get their vote, it’s not the fault of the Voting Rights Act, it’s the fault of the candidate.
But for now, we are left with Republican maps that eliminate the idea of interracial partnerships in favor of districts where one race gets to vote for their candidate and another gets to vote for theirs. That’s where the kernel of the argument that the South is becoming more resegregated lies. It’s more insidious than separate water fountains, however, and possibly not even intentional at times. That’s why we having the Voting Rights Act to help catch these sorts of abuses before they happen, and then help us go forward.
However, for now all we can do it wait. The Georgia General Assembly is out of session until next year and then we will be focusing on the work we need to do in order to secure a good future for the state of Georgia and our citizens. In addition, do not forget that our monthly Citizen Advisory Forum will be meeting September 17th, 2011 from 10:30AM to 12:00PM noon at Cafe 45 South, located at 45 South Peachtree Street in historic Norcross, 30071. The discussion will be about what happens to us as a community, so please come and bring your friends and your questions. I look forward to coffee and fellowship with you all.
Thanks for all that you do,
Curt
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