Re-Districting Talking Points 7-18-11 for Monday Hearing

8/6/2019 Re-Districting Talking Points 7-18-11 for Monday Hearing

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ON SPLIT COUNTIES:

ON SPLIT PRECINCTS:

ON DOUBLE-BUNKING:

Option 1

(Counties that have been split in the past and are still split in this map)

We have been divided into two (or three) Senate/House districts for the past __ decade(s) and have been

unable to elect a candidate for our home county because of that.

I would ask that the committee consider putting _______ County into one district in order to give us a fair

shot as having representation from our home county in the legislature. In appears to me that you have split

the county into multiple districts only because you packed African Americans into districts to help elect

Republicans in the other districts.

(Expand on your county’s interest in the legislature and why it should be in one district – economic reasons,

population reasons, etc.)

Precincts are the most basic level of vot ing geography in our state.

These are neighborhoods with a common polling location and common community interests.

Yet the Republican redistricting p lans needlessly split hundreds of precincts into pieces.

Rucho Senate 1 splits 261 precincts into separate districts.

Lewis Do llar Dockham 1 splits a whopping 422 precincts into separate districts.

Splitting precincts is unnecessary in these plans.

Splitting precincts splits neighborhoods into pieces, diluting their representation among different legislators.

Splitting precincts is bad for fair and well-run elections – poll workers will have trouble keeping track of

who lives in what district, and this will make errors at the ballot box much more likely.

Raises the potential for voter fraud if people can take advantage of the confusion.

:

Looking at all the ridiculous elements in the Republican map, they want to make us believe that more of

anything is better. They are kind of like a bad used car salesman.

They say if two splits are good in a county, four is even better. They say if 45% of blacks in a district

already elect a preferred candidate, guess what? 52% is better.

o

o



Now, apparently, we are told with these maps that if one incumbent in a district is good, then two to them in

the same district is great. I don't think that's how we do math in North Carolina.

:

Putting incumbents into districts together seems unnecessary when drawing the legislative maps.

In both the House and the Senate plans you chose to put several pairs of incumbents into one district. In

many places this will have a dire effect on the county’s effectiveness in the legislature and will dilute their

representation. (Talk about your specific members/counties here.)

Vindictively putting two incumbents into the same districts does not serve the voters in those districts, rather

it seems to only serve the purpose of partisan gerrymandering and settling political scores.

I have been a North Carolina voter for years. I came here today to let you folks on the committee know that

I am quite surprised and extremely disappointed about the tone that you all have struck in this district map

proposal, since it’s clear to me that the folks who drew it really do not have a sense of how effective

minorities have been in our existing districts.

Since [FILL IN YEAR], we have elected a preferred candidate to the state legislature in Raleigh from our

legislative district. We are particularly proud of that accomplishment because that victory involved the

support from both the black and white communities. Folks have worked across racial lines to get people in

office who can strengthen our neighborhoods and improve life for all of the people in our county and in the

state as a whole.

And the effective service of our legislator [SPECIFIC PERSON] has brought us even closer together.

[FILL IN ANY EXAMPLES OF ISSUES/IDEAS THAT YOU ALL HAVE WORKED ON ACROSS

RACIAL LINES AND BILLS THAT YOU ARE PROUD OF].

I think that the electoral history of this district tells a success story about how race relations have improved

in politics.

It’s therefore a real shame that this new plan spends so much effort to concentrate African Americans when

the current districts like ours have worked so well in this county. Our experience shows that voters in the

black and white community have been effective in building bridges. Perhaps you all didn’t ask anybody

who lives here, but this is not 1964 M ississippi.

Option 2

ON RACIALLY POLARIZED VOTING





The district that I’ve always voted in has at its core [FILL IN CITY OR NEIGHBORHOOD]. We have been

quite satisfied and pleased with the level of constituent service from our representative, and we think that the

look of the district over all makes a lot of sense. One of the reasons the district works well is that its borders

follow the lines that define the way real people live in our area. The folks in this area know each other, we go

to school together, we worship together, and we work together to get the job done in elections. We are a

network of clubs and groups that commonly organize to address major issues that affect us. [FILL IN AN

EXAMPLE OF A MAJOR ISSUE THAT YOU’VE BEEN INVOLVED WITH.]

The proposal released by the committee seriously alters the way that the core parts of this district sit. It

separates the folks who have a long tradition of working together and who see eye to eye on what concerns us

most in public life. This proposed district looks about as real as a bad plastic surgery job; the folks I know

wouldn’t mistake this district for anything like the kind of lines that would define the real communities in this

county.

While I understand that populations for districts have to be equal, I really don’t understand why you thought

these radical changes were a necessary part of your changes. From what I can tell, there must be some other

goal you have in m ind. Because if you were really out to assure that our community would be fairly

represented in the legislature, then I’ve got to tell you that this map falls way short of what you’re after. We

think the existing form of our district, with our core communities joined together is already great. So please

listen to me carefully: we really don’t need any kind of district makeovers, extreme or otherwise.

In examining the shapes of the proposed VRA districts, it is unclear to me how many of these configurations

serve a compact area. It seems obvious that these lines have been drawn specifically to pick up pockets of blackvoters, wherever they might be, with little or no regard for anything else. That some of these proposed districts

run through three or four counties in the shapes of various tentacled sea creatures makes no sense to most

residents who have arbitrarily been drawn into these districts.

The most glaring example of this problem is the new 20 th House district. For example, what do the small

number of urban African-Americans in Wilmington have in common with rural African-Americans in Bladen

County who will make up the majority of the voting strength in this proposed new 20 th District? Furthermore,

how will members of a community in New Hanover or Brunswick organize with people as f ar away as north

Bladen County? Also, I can see trouble for Representatives and Senators who, in several instances in this

proposal, will have to travel great distances to reach their constituents. This may, in fact, make residents of

some of the more remote corners of these districts feel underserved.

From what I recall, these districts U.S. Supreme Court case in the 90’s – Shaw v. Reno - that came out of North

Carolina dealing with the issue of creating districts in this fashion. I believe the Court found that creating

districts that look like those recently proposed by Rep. Lewis, Senator Rucho, and the Republicans would be

wrong and, moreover, possibly illegal.

ON SHAPE



ON COMMITTEE NOT LISTENING TO THE PUBLIC

I suppose that you all should get some credit for trying again, but your effort doesn’t justify producing a bad

map twice in a row. This map is not much more than a minor change on a bad map. You revised something

that the people clearly told you to reject outright.

In the last public hearing, Chairman Rucho and Chairman Lewis, you all were specifically asked by the voters

to show how you would use input that we all submitted. This map looks like you heard the one or twocomments in a flood of opposing statements about how ridiculous this plan is. Are you seriously asking the

people of this state to accept that this is your best effort at being responsive to our criticism? Exactly how dumb

do you think we are?

While you sit and smile at so many of us who tell you that these plans are wrong-headed, ill-considered, and

horribly designed, I wonder if you are thinking about new ways to ignore all of the changes we have asked you

to make.

I have a question for you Chairmen. If this process is seriously meant for the public to understand what these

maps will do, then why is it that you are the only one who gets to ask questions of us at your choosing? We

have some questions for you and we ask that you explain yourself. That weak joint statement of yours is about

as meaningless as the greeting cards you send out to your constituents.

You keep asking people for a definition for packing. Are you telling us that you don’t know what it is?

Because I look at these maps and I hear African Americans say they are just fine in the districts that they have

and I ask myself: Why is it that Republicans want to do black people a favor? Can you answer that?

You tried to nip and tuck a horribly flawed plan and then dress it up with a nice statement that you have all your

people are out saying: It’s fair and legal. This is barely credible, which is why even voters for your own party

are admitting that this map is almost laughable. And almost, only because it would impose such dire

consequences for this state if it passes.

So another question: You’d have us believe that your maps do a better job of following federal law than Anita

Earls, a former official in the Justice Department. She developed a plan that she has shown follows the law, yet

you claim that she does not. I don’t know, but if I’m given the choice between a civil rights lawyer with

experience in this area and a dentist about what the law requires, then I’m going with the lawyer.

You know, I think that Republicans must be engaged in the art of the imagination. They seem to imagine that

there was a wave of comments that led them to this. They seem to imagine themselves to be the experts on

federal law.

You say in this joke of a statement, you seem to have no idea why you shouldn’t draw every district of the state

with 50% African American majorities. How about the fact that African Americans don’t want it? Can you

point to the record showing the overwhelming support for changing all of these effective districts and packing

them with new voters? I’ve followed it all and I surely cannot.

Is there nothing that you all won’t do in pursuit of power? With so much of the progress that this state has

made to develop a politics of including people of different racial backgrounds, where African Americans run

and win in places where most folks don’t look like them, why would you possibly think that there is a need all

over NC to pack African Americans in so few districts?



What’s so shameful about what you did is that you’re honest enough to announce the real reason that you

adopted these monstrosities you call districts. You are doing nothing more than attempting to wall of African

Americans from giving you any serious competition in the rest of the state. What scares you so much about

running in a d istrict with African American voters?

So in order to believe that all of these changes were intended to help African American voters, you have to

believe a few things: (1) Chairmen Rucho and Lewis know more about what’s good for African American than

all the African American voters in North Carolina who spoke out against this plan since June (2) that somehow,Republicans found religion since introducing all of the offensive changes they seek to prevent African

Americans and (3) this state is too blind to see the difference between a genuine effort to support a community

and a badly managed power grab for domination of the state legislature. You both should be ashamed.

Documents

Re-Districting Talking Points 7-18-11 for Monday Hearing