On Tuesday, Democrats won seats in at least 12 districts that Republicans had redrawn in large-scale gerrymandering efforts pushed by President Donald Trump and the GOP over the past year and a half. Last summer, Trump pushed Republican-led states to redraw congressional maps in favor of the Republican Party, and to prevent a loss of power in the midterm elections. He first called on Texas…
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How should Juneteenth be understood, be celebrated, be remembered, given this moment of deep anti-democratic machinations and authoritarian/fascistic ambitions cultivated at the “highest” offices within this land? The tension between the sense of renewed freedom that Juneteenth engenders and the profound unfreedom that this country perpetuates is not lost on me. Indeed, as the 250th anniversary of…
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Nearly a third of the seats in Congress currently held by members of the Congressional Black Caucus could be at risk due to a recent Supreme Court ruling upending aspects of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), a new analysis has found. In late April, the conservative-led Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision along partisan lines, ruled against enforcement mechanisms used by some lower courts requiring…
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There are moments when history moves so fast that distraction becomes dangerous. Last week was one of those moments. While much of Memphis and Shelby County were pulled into the familiar rhythms of election analysis, political frustration, and personality-driven debate, something far more consequential was unfolding in Nashville. Tennessee’s recent congressional redistricting effort…
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On Wednesday, Tennessee state Republican lawmakers proposed a new congressional map that would lessen the already small Democratic representation in the state and eliminate Black political power within the delegation sent to Washington. The move comes after the federal Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that enforcement mechanisms from lower courts for the Voting Rights Act (VRA)…
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Following a Supreme Court ruling last week that upended enforcement mechanisms of the Voting Rights Act, President Donald Trump called on Republican states throughout the country to use the occasion to gerrymander their maps for political reasons. The missive from Trump, posted on Truth Social on Monday, incorrectly implied that states had to change their maps following the court’s ruling.
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