US House Redistricting: South Carolina

[BigSkyBob]

The VRA is about minority voters electing a candidate of their choice, not tailoring districts that will guarantee the election of a minority. SC-1 doesn't qualify under that criteria, even if it is represented by an African-American, but that logic it would had to have been converted to a minority-majority district just because of who was elected to represent it.

The VRA act was about stopping the "cracking" of minorities so that no minority was elected.

[BigSkyBob]

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1) I see the VRA is now being reintrepreted to protect White liberals. In case you have forgotten, White liberals have never been subjected to the types of acts that the VRA was suppose to remedy.

2)  This presumes a closed primary system in which White voters whom typical vote Republican don't nominate the White Democrat in the primary.

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[BigSkyBob]

Congressional redistricting debate splinters Senate

(link - The State)

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As mentioned later in the article, the GOP will do its best to find a plan to agree to so as to avoid having a three-judge Federal panel draw the lines and possibly giving the Democrats the chance to elect a second Representative.

The Senate will resume debate on redistricting on Monday.

I wonder if part of the public fight stems from a private recognition that any 6-1 plan will be vulnerable to a challenge. Black statewide VAP is 26.3%, which is equivalent to 1.84 congressional districts. The standard is "rough proportionality", but there's no clear guidance as to whether 1 district is roughly proportional to 1.84. Perhaps the lawyers internally are suggesting that it would be unlikely to be viewed that way.

Substitute "Hispanic" for "Black," and "California" for "South Carolina" and you have about 20 "Hispanic" VRA districts. Good Luck drawing that many seats. The reality is that Hispanics are fairly dispersed in California, and Blacks are fairly dispersed in the South, including South Carolina.

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