{"id":12276,"date":"2019-08-20T10:56:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-20T14:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/articles\/election-manipulators-use-alec-to-push-their-partisan-power-grabs-against-voters\/"},"modified":"2019-08-20T10:56:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-20T14:56:00","slug":"election-manipulators-use-alec-to-push-their-partisan-power-grabs-against-voters","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/es\/articles\/election-manipulators-use-alec-to-push-their-partisan-power-grabs-against-voters\/","title":{"rendered":"Election Manipulators Use ALEC To Push Their Partisan Power Grabs Against Voters"},"template":"","class_list":["post-12276","article","type-article","status-publish","hentry","article_type-blog-post"],"acf":{"details":{"summary":"The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is up to it again: promoting new ways to restrict political representation and undermine one of the central foundations of American democracy. ","featured_image":null,"article_type":1103,"authors":["{\"site_id\":\"1\",\"post_type\":\"person\",\"post_id\":8296}"],"related_issues":[103,137,138,2066,2082],"related_work":false,"location":null},"sidebar":{"helper_enable_sidebar":false,"helper_media_contact":{"heading":"Media Contact","manually_enter_person":false,"person":null,"name":"","role":"","phone":"","email":""},"helper_links_downloads":{"heading":"Links & Downloads","links":null}},"page_layout":[{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null,"component_wysiwyg":{"content":"<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last week, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) held its annual meeting in Austin, Texas. At the conference, state legislators and corporate lobbyists from across the country gathered to strategize and push for ALEC\u2019s corporate-backed and right-wing agenda. Included in ALEC\u2019s meeting were two sessions on redistricting.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hans von Spakovsky was one of ALEC\u2019s presenters on redistricting at the conference. Spakovsky, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, is a longtime peddler of lies about voter fraud and advocate of voter suppression laws. He most recently served on President Trump\u2019s disbanded <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/flawedfromthestart.org\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pence-Kobach \u201celection integrity\u201d commission<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">En un <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ZEi0Qvndn00&amp;feature=youtu.be&amp;fbclid=IwAR32M1lAcwF6BsYdQ5K5l3xEDArUAc75E_oTTR6AvI-FP4ZQWhtf0o0JHDI\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">video interview with ALEC<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Spakovsky admitted that during his workshop, he urged state legislators to use citizen voting age population data for redistricting, instead of total population (which almost all states currently use). What this means is politicians who draw legislative district maps would intentionally leave non-citizens and anyone under the age of 18 out of the redistricting process, effectively denying them representation in government and tilting the scales against communities of color. In addition to this being legally questionable based on what\u2019s in the U.S. Constitution, it would also rely on data that isn\u2019t always the most accurate (<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/es\/democracy-wire\/wrong-on-so-many-levels-why-citizenship-data-will-damage-voting-maps\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">read more about that here<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">).\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Spakovsky also blatantly said that this new plan to rig district maps for the next decade \u201cmay give an advantage to Republican legislators.\u201d This partisan admission is similar to that of Thomas Hofeller, the longtime Republican redistricting operative responsible for drawing many of the GOP\u2019s gerrymandered maps from the last few decades.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">En <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/es\/resource\/los-archivos-de-hofeller\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">documents obtained by Common Cause<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in our lawsuit challenging the North Carolina legislature\u2019s partisan gerrymander (<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/es\/lewis\/\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Causa com\u00fan contra Lewis<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">), Hofeller urged the use of citizen voting age population so redistricting would be \u201cadvantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites.\u201d<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Spakovsky\u2019s workshop at ALEC <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/duboo\/status\/1162038745534795777\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">also featured Cleta Mitchell<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a conservative activist and attorney who has <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.citizensforethics.org\/cleta-mitchell-wrong-again\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">spewed myths<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> about widespread voter fraud to order to make voting more difficult.<\/span>\r\n\r\nDe acuerdo a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texasobserver.org\/republicans-come-to-texas-to-prepare-for-the-2021-redistricting-battle\/\">a report by the Texas Observer<\/a>, both Spakovsky and Mitchell encouraged legislators at the ALEC conference to throw away notes and avoid saying things in email on redistricting that they do not want public for their constituents to see, further undermining transparency in the redistricting process.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Both Spakovsky and Mitchell recently opposed the For the People Act (H.R. 1) in Congress, a broad democracy reform bill focused on campaign finance, ethics, and voting. H.R. 1 included a provision requiring states to use an independent nonpartisan commission to draw political representation and voting maps. California, Arizona, and other states<a href=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/es\/democracy-wire\/can-the-people-end-gerrymandering-if-the-supreme-court-punts\/\"> already use this type of commission<\/a> and it has proven to be successful in stopping gerrymandering and producing fairer maps.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Using ALEC\u2019s conference to advocate for anti-democratic initiatives shouldn\u2019t be a surprise. ALEC has <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/alec-exposed-rigging-elections\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">been the key organization<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in pushing discriminatory voter ID laws across the country in the last decade. In 2017, ALEC <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/entry\/trump-voter-fraud-commission-alec_n_5a29bfbde4b069ec48abff48\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">held a panel<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with members of Trump\u2019s \u201celection integrity\u201d commission, which included Spakovsky. Yet another panel was held that year on redistricting with \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/es\/democracy-wire\/who-is-behind-michigan-redistricting-initiative-challenge\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fair Lines America<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,\u201d a secretive group aimed at protecting Republican gerrymanders.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last year, ALEC <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.prwatch.org\/news\/2018\/08\/13387\/alec-launches-effort-protect-gerrymandering-judges\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">adopted<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> a \u201cmodel\u201d resolution stating that redistricting powers should remain with partisan politicians without interference from the courts. ALEC also recently<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/DocketPDF\/18\/18-281\/78378\/20190104161702005_18-281%20Amici%20Brief%20ALEC.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> present\u00f3 un escrito<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at the U.S. Supreme Court defending the Virginia legislature\u2019s racial gerrymanders.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Excluding non-citizens and children from voting districts is part of a devious long term plan by extreme right-wing politicians to further divide our country and undermine the principles of representative democracy. As we approach the 2020 Census and 2021 redistricting cycle, it is going to take all of us to be engaged and on watch to stop partisan and special interest forces like ALEC and Spakovsky who seek to divide us by rigging the rules to gerrymander themselves into power.\u00a0<\/span>"}}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.6 (Yoast SEO v27.1.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Election Manipulators Use ALEC To Push Their Partisan Power Grabs Against Voters - Common Cause<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/es\/articulos-2\/election-manipulators-use-alec-to-push-their-partisan-power-grabs-against-voters\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"es_MX\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Election Manipulators Use ALEC To Push Their Partisan Power Grabs Against Voters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/es\/articulos-2\/election-manipulators-use-alec-to-push-their-partisan-power-grabs-against-voters\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Common Cause\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CommonCause\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/CC-Share-Graphic-Main9.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@CommonCause\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/articles\/election-manipulators-use-alec-to-push-their-partisan-power-grabs-against-voters\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/articles\/election-manipulators-use-alec-to-push-their-partisan-power-grabs-against-voters\/\",\"name\":\"Election Manipulators Use ALEC To Push Their Partisan Power Grabs Against Voters - 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