Our View: The Supreme Court
should have blocked the Texas GOP redistricting plan.
Democrats
suffered a crippling defeat last Friday when the Supreme Court refused to
block a hard-fought Republican redistricting plan in Texas in the case of
Jackson v. Perry. The new map could cost Democrats as many as six seats in
an already Republican-controlled Congress.
The redistricting will
inevitably weaken minority voting strength. Politically speaking, the
lines have been drawn in just the right places to give Republicans the
confidence to expect a seizure of 22 of Texas's 32 seats in Congress. The
districts were drawn and approved by the Texas Legislature, which is also
controlled by Republicans.
This
new plan will have a likely troublesome effect on the upcoming
Presidential election for Democrats.
The Supreme Court's decision
is evidence of the negative affect a predominately conservative Court will
have on minority populations. The Court conveniently declined to rule on
the 'wisdom" of Texas's new redistricting plan.
We believe the
Court has failed minorities by refusing to block this plan.
This
type of redistricting is known in black politics as "gerrymandering" and
it is nothing new. This practice has been going on since blacks first
received the right to vote as a means of suppressing African-American
voting power. The plan is to separate districts by race, class, and any
other social group that can be sectioned off to best fit a specific
political goal. Who do you think gets blocked out?
We as
African-American voters need to make this an issue so that it is not
continuously accepted as okay. This is an important issue that we should
lobby and write to our Congress members about. The practice of redrawing
district lines could becomes even more widespread, even outside of the
state of Texas.
If we don't fight for our voting rights, no one
will.