VRA districts

[krazen1211]

How have we not move past the point of being obligated to make special segregated districts for minorities? If it happens naturally, as is the case with my home district of TN-9 or on the South Side of Chicago, great. But drawing a montrosity like NC-12 or FL-3, just so blacks can have "their" district is highly offensive to me. It's also totally screws the Dems by packing so many of our voters into one district. It doesn't make any sense.

Minorities want their fair share of Democratic districts. If you're a Hispanic or Black Democrat it makes perfect sense.

[krazen1211]

How have we not move past the point of being obligated to make special segregated districts for minorities? If it happens naturally, as is the case with my home district of TN-9 or on the South Side of Chicago, great. But drawing a monstrosity like NC-12 or FL-3, just so blacks can have "their" district is highly offensive to me. It's also totally screws the Dems by packing so many of our voters into one district. It doesn't make any sense.

Minorities want their fair share of Democratic districts. If you're a Hispanic or Black Democrat it makes perfect sense.

No. Black people don't want a special segregated ghetto seat anywhere.

That isn't what Black state legislators have advocated in state after state. For instance, in Missouri, Black Democrats and Republicans formed a coalition to maintain as Black as possible districts in St Louis and Kansas City.

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The Democratic legislature of Tennessee "cracked" the Black communities in the Memphis area between the 8th and 9th districts to shore up a White Democrat in the 8th. The 9th retrogressed.


I don't think that is exactly the VRA argument the Democrats want to make.

In Louisiana a black legislator did not want to give up her 88% black district and requested that GOP leadership maintain that district rather than crack her blacks.

[krazen1211]

Black Democrats in Florida express outrage at the attempt to crack their districts.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/11/2585203/senate-committee-finalizes-redistricting.html

But it was clear that Rich didn’t even have the support of her own members for her plan. Her congressional map, for example, would have ended the seven-county stretch that now comprises the district held by U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown and make it more compact but, in turn, reduce the percentage of black voters from 49 percent to 36 percent.

"This would have clearly diminished the ability for African Americans to be elected to office,’’ said Sen. Larcenia Bullard, D-Miami, whose district would have gone from more than 50 percent black under the Senate map to 20 percent black under Rich’s plan. Bullard’s son hopes to replace her when she leaves because of term limits.