How You Draw The Districts Determines The Vote

On Friday, The Daily Signal posted an article about a recent decision by the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals regarding voting districts. There was a county is Texas where a voting district was carved out specifically to make sure a minority-race Democrat would be elected. The Court ruled that was not acceptable.

The article reports:

In Petteway v. Galveston County, the full appeals court concluded that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act does not protect or “authorize coalition claims, either expressly or by implication.” Coalition districts are districts in which no single minority group constitutes a majority of the voters. Instead, in those districts, there is a combination of different minority racial, ethnic, or language groups that make up a majority of voters. 

The citizen population of Galveston County is 58% white, 22.5% Hispanic, and 12.5% black. Although the black population is concentrated in the center of the county, the Hispanic population is evenly dispersed throughout. The county commission consists of five seats: four elected from specific districts and one elected at-large. Neither the black nor the Hispanic population of Galveston County is large enough and concentrated enough to draw a single commission district in which either group constitutes a majority of the voters in that particular district.

As a result, in 1991, the county drew one coalition district that combined the black and Hispanic population in one district, which was represented by a black Democrat as of 2021. The other seats were all held by Republicans, including a black Republican. However, in the 2021 redistricting, the county eliminated the coalition district, which had a black citizen population of 31% and a Hispanic citizen population of 24%. 

The NAACP and the Justice Department led by Attorney General Merrick Garland, along with a number of individual plaintiffs, sued Galveston claiming that this was a violation of federal law because coalition districts are required by Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. 

This case is not the only one involving coalition districts. Please follow the link to the article for further details.

A Second Chance?

The elections last week did not go well for Republicans. There were a lot of reasons for this, some real and some made up by non-Republicans. One state that had disappointing results was Virginia–the Democrats retained control of the Senate and retook the House of Delegates. Well, that may not be the end of the story.

On Saturday, Townhall reported:

We have reports that some funny business with a Virginia Democratic state senator might give control of the upper chamber to the Republicans. The Daily Wire’s Luke Rosiak wrote that there might be serious questions regarding the validity of Sen. Ghazala Hashmi’s residency. You must live in the district you’re representing, and multiple sources say Hashmi’s paperwork is inaccurate. Hashmi represented Senate District 10 but opted to run for the 15th district this cycle post-redistricting. The reason is apparent: this is a slam-dunk blue district encompassing parts of Richmond and Chesterfield County

On Saturday, The Daily Wire reported:

…Hashmi filed candidacy paperwork saying she lived in an apartment on Boulder Lake Drive in North Chesterfield in Senate District 15.

But four neighbors filed a complaint saying she actually lives outside the district on Bosham Lane in Midlothian, and they provided a spreadsheet saying they had driven by the house 62 times during the month of October to document her residency. The notes include her car being there late at night and early in the morning, and her leaving the house shortly after 8 a.m. It also includes photographic evidence.

Putting Hashmi in a particular bind, if she did live in the Chesterfield apartment, then she may have committed a felony by concealing her ownership of the Midlothian home on sworn election forms.

The Certificate of Candidacy Qualification, which she signed March 14, 2023, says, “I now reside at the address shown below in the district in which I seek office,” under which she listed the North Chesterfield apartment.

The form also asks, “Do you or a member of your immediately family, separately or together, hold an interest valued at more than $5,000 in real property? DO NOT INCLUDE your principal residence.” She checked “no,” and did not list the Midlothian home. Real estate records show that she and her husband have owned that — worth nearly $600,000 — since 1999.

Stay tuned.

 

When The Courts Play Politics

We need to remember that the U.S. Constitution gives the responsibility of setting the manner of holding congressional elections to the state legislators. That responsibility includes redistricting based on the census. In North Carolina the courts decided that the map of the districts provided by the Republican-led legislature were not acceptable. Then the court appointed three “special masters” to inspect the map and make corrections. That in itself is questionable, but they did it. The redrawn maps do not reflect the political demographic of the state–they represent a serious effort to gerrymander the districts in favor of the Democrats.

The Carolina Journal reported the following on Friday:

Gerrymanders are not always apparent when looking at a map, but the special masters’ gerrymander is clearest when looking at two parts of the state. The first and most obvious is that they cleaved Charlotte in half, grafting one-half of the city to suburbs in Mecklenburg and Cabarrus counties and the other half to Gaston County. That move violated two basic redistricting principles by not creating a congressional district that is wholly contained in Mecklenburg County and by dividing clear communities of interest.

The special masters could have easily preserved communities of interest by drawing central Charlotte in one districting and linking suburban communities of Cabarrus, Mecklenburg, and Gaston Counties. In doing so, they would have created one safe Democratic district and one relatively competitive Democratic-leaning district. Instead, they made two safe Democratic districts by unnecessarily grafting urban and suburban areas in both districts.

State Senator Jeff Jackson (D-Mecklenburg) has already expressed interest in running in the new safely Democratic 14th District. Bob Orr, the so-called “unaffiliated” special master appointed by the trial court in the redistricting case, is a fan of Jackson’s. According to Federal Election Commission records, he donated to Jackson’s campaign committee in 2021. In recent years, the “unaffiliated” special master has also donated to other Democratic candidates such as Joe Biden and Dan McCready.

The special masters also gerrymandered the Wake County districts. They split southeastern Raleigh from the rest of the city to put it in the 13th District. Splitting was unnecessary; the special masters could have easily kept Raleigh whole by adding rural and suburban eastern Wake County to the 13th.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. Unfortunately, this is what happens when a partisan court oversteps its bounds. When we lived in Massachusetts, our voting district was shaped like a sea horse in order to dilute the Republican votes of a conservative area. Gerrymandering, unfortunately, is a way of life in America. However, it should not be done by supposedly neutral courts.

Titles Can Be Very Misleading

H.R. 1 was introduced into the House of Representatives on January 4, 2021. The bill is titled, “For the People Act of 2021.” The bill is anything but for the people.

Heritage Action took the time to dissect the bill and see exactly what its impact would be. Here are some of the highlights:

At 600+ pages long, H.R. 1 contains many provisions that are unhelpful, unnecessary, and unconstitutional. Below are just a few of the terrible policies contained within H.R. 1:

Sabotages state voter ID laws—When arriving at the polls, voters will not be required to show ID and can simply sign a statement in which they claim to be who they say they are. This undermines many states’ voter ID laws, which were enacted to combat impersonation fraud, voter registration fraud, duplicate voting, and voting by ineligible individuals, such as illegal aliens.

Mandates same-day registration—States will be required to immediately register a person to vote upon request, even on the day of an election. With no buffer-period to verify personal information, this provision could easily lead to voter fraud.

Automatically registers ineligible voters—States will be required to automatically add to voter registration rolls every person, regardless of voter eligibility, who partakes in certain government programs, such as receiving welfare or obtaining a driver’s license. Other provisions of H.R. 1 then restrict the ability of states to verify eligible voters and the removal of ineligible voters from voter registration rolls. This provision will automatically enroll ineligible voters such as illegal aliens.

Unconstitutionally requires states to restore the ability of felons to vote—Upon release from prison, every felon would immediately be restored the ability to vote. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution allows states to restrict voting rights to those who have participated in “rebellion, or other crime.” States have the constitutional authority to decide when or if to restore that right, as long as they do so in a manner that is not racially discriminatory. H.R. 1 would attempt to unconstitutionally overrule the 14th Amendment with a statute.

Violates the First Amendment—H.R.1 deters political free speech by inserting a provision that makes it a criminal offense to provide “materially false” information that will “impede or prevent” someone from registering or voting. This provision is so vague that it would likely interfere with free speech and other legitimate activities.

Requires ballots be counted outside of the voter’s precinct—This removes the integrity of the local government to verify voter rolls and oversee elections and gives the power to count votes entirely to the federal government.

Creates unaccountable redistricting committees—Currently, congressional district lines are drawn by state governments that are accountable to their constituents. Allowing unelected officials to determine congressional districts is a nakedly political ploy to draw more Democratic districts.

Alters Federal Election Commission into a partisan organization—Currently, the FEC has six members (three from each party), preserving its bipartisan nature. H.R. 1 would reduce the number to five, giving one party a majority and the opportunity to weaponize the FEC for their party’s benefit.

We are at a point in our constitutional republic where one political party is attempting to gain full control in both the present and future. This is not healthy for the republic. This bill needs to be stopped. Please share the above information.

 

Stacking The Deck To Steal An Election

Next year is an important election for America. The ‘fundamental transformation of America’ has been temporarily interrupted by the Trump administration, but there are those who are extremely anxious to see the transformation continue. They are fully prepared to manage the decline of America. Unfortunately President Trump is fully prepared to manage the reemergence of America as a major economic player. That will be the battle fought. Americans (knowingly or unknowingly) will be asked to choose between growth or decline. President Obama is sending his henchman Eric Holder to see if the scales can be tipped in favor of decline. In August I posted an article about this effort. Now that effort is officially coming to North Carolina.

On Thursday, Channel 5 in Raleigh reported:

Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder strategized on redistricting reform Thursday with left-leaning groups that are knee-deep in the issue in North Carolina.

Holder, who served under former President Barack Obama, met with activists in Raleigh and Greensboro. He’s chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, making him the Democratic Party’s point man on redistricting reform, gerrymandering lawsuits and state legislative fights heading into the 2020 elections.

Those elections will decide control of state legislatures, and thus a decade’s worth of election maps for legislative and congressional districts across the country. His group, with backing from the former president, has funded lawsuits and election campaigns with the overarching goal of electing Democrats and undoing maps his side sees as unfair Republican gerrymanders.

When that’s done, Holder said Thursday, he hopes to see nonpartisan redistricting reform take hold in more states. He said he favors an independent commission that takes the power away from elected officials to draw their own districts.

“We’ve got to get back to a place where elections are simply fair,” Holder said.

The article further explains:

Republicans have criticized Holder’s effort as a partisan one, geared toward electing Democrats whether the maps are fair or not. A spokesman for Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, with whom Holder sparred a bit on Twitter last month, asked Thursday “how many times Eric Holder has hosted a roundtable in blue states.”

“It’s probably equal to the number of blue states he’s sued, which is zero,” Pat Ryan said in an email. “Holder’s support for ‘fair maps’ is a phony front to help Democrats win more elections.”

Holder hasn’t shied away from the partisan nature of his effort. He told those gathered in Raleigh that “it sounds kind of strange, but this is a partisan attempt at good government.”

Sorry, Eric Holder, there is no such thing as a partisan attempt at good government. Remember, this is the man who ignored a video of the New Black Panthers intimidating voters in Philadelphia and dropped the charges. The video has disappeared from YouTube, but here is a still shot:

When I think of Eric Holder, I don’t think of good government.