Post by the Scribe on Oct 19, 2022 2:08:20 GMT
ELECTIONS
Who counts as Black in voting maps? Some GOP state officials want that narrowed
www.npr.org/2022/10/18/1126287827/redistricting-supreme-court-louisiana-black-african-american
October 18, 20225:04 AM ET
HANSI LO WANG
Republican state officials in Louisiana are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on which voters should be categorized as Black when testing whether a map of election districts dilutes the political power of Black voters.
Smartboy10/Getty Images
Who counts as Black?
The thorny question has quietly found its way before the U.S. Supreme Court again, ensnared in a major legal battle over the Voting Rights Act that could further gut the landmark law and make it harder to protect the political power of voters of color.
The battle is playing out over new maps of congressional voting districts created by Republican-led legislatures in Alabama and Louisiana after the 2020 census. The fate of the maps rests on how the Supreme Court rules first in the case out of Alabama — Merrill v. Milligan — which the high court heard this month and may set a precedent for lawsuits about Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Supreme Court conservatives may strike another blow to landmark Voting Rights Act
www.npr.org/2022/10/04/1126804414/supreme-court-voting-rights-act
In both cases out of the Deep South states, lower courts have separately found that the maps were drawn in a way that likely dilutes Black voters' strength at the polls. That would violate the Voting Rights Act by giving a minority group, as spelled out in Section 2, "less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice."
GOP state officials have pushed back against the analyses that led to those findings, partly by questioning a definition of Blackness that, for close to two decades, has been the standard in cases focused on the voting power of Black people and no other racial or ethnic group whom the federal government classifies as a protected minority population.
more
Who counts as Black in voting maps? Some GOP state officials want that narrowed
www.npr.org/2022/10/18/1126287827/redistricting-supreme-court-louisiana-black-african-american
October 18, 20225:04 AM ET
HANSI LO WANG
Republican state officials in Louisiana are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on which voters should be categorized as Black when testing whether a map of election districts dilutes the political power of Black voters.
Smartboy10/Getty Images
Who counts as Black?
The thorny question has quietly found its way before the U.S. Supreme Court again, ensnared in a major legal battle over the Voting Rights Act that could further gut the landmark law and make it harder to protect the political power of voters of color.
The battle is playing out over new maps of congressional voting districts created by Republican-led legislatures in Alabama and Louisiana after the 2020 census. The fate of the maps rests on how the Supreme Court rules first in the case out of Alabama — Merrill v. Milligan — which the high court heard this month and may set a precedent for lawsuits about Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Supreme Court conservatives may strike another blow to landmark Voting Rights Act
www.npr.org/2022/10/04/1126804414/supreme-court-voting-rights-act
In both cases out of the Deep South states, lower courts have separately found that the maps were drawn in a way that likely dilutes Black voters' strength at the polls. That would violate the Voting Rights Act by giving a minority group, as spelled out in Section 2, "less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice."
GOP state officials have pushed back against the analyses that led to those findings, partly by questioning a definition of Blackness that, for close to two decades, has been the standard in cases focused on the voting power of Black people and no other racial or ethnic group whom the federal government classifies as a protected minority population.
more