Empowering Communities of Color Through Fair Redistricting Plans
Fair redistricting is essential to our democracy, and this year represents an opportunity to ensure that, in the future, communities of color will have the opportunity to elect representatives of their choice. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) has been a safeguard for minority representation in elections since its enactment 56 years ago. VRA Section 5 represented a cornerstone of this protection by requiring those States, or their political subdivisions, with a history of discriminatory voting procedures to obtain federal approval before implementing changes to their geographic voter districts (or any other change in standard, practice of procedure). When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled VRA Section 4 unconstitutional in 2013 (in Shelby County v. Holder), it effectively rendered Section 5 inoperable. While many had hoped the U.S. Congress would enact a work around to revitalize Section 5 before the 2020 census was completed and redistricting (based on revised population figures) started, this has yet to occur. Without the protection of Section 5, communities of color are at increased peril of disenfranchisement through unrepresentative redistricting.