News Clips

“This is the culmination of a years long effort to maintain the status quo,” John Marion, executive director of the government watchdog group Common Cause Rhode Island, told The Boston Globe. “They did not hide the fact that the goal was to let the incumbents draw the maps as they pleased.”

Critics of the map argued it diluted the power of minority voters. Bob Phillips, the executive director of Common Cause North Carolina, one of the map’s challengers, told reporters on a call Wednesday that the state wants to be “the leader of the path forward to a better way with regards to redistricting.” “We watched all this train wreck and simply decided we could not sit back and see racist gerrymandered maps locked in for the next decade that will ensure one party in power at the expense of voters of color,” Phillips said.

The question in Florida, said Dan Vicuna of the anti-gerrymandering group Common Cause, is “will courts put aside whatever are their own personal party preferences and adhere to the law?”

Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for the government watchdog group Common Cause, said the case shows how states can fail to educate people about voting rights and voter reenfranchisement. She also called the sentence excessive and said Moses’ race is likely a factor. “It is well understood and well known that the criminal justice system is harsher on Black and brown defendants than it is on white defendants, and there’s plenty of research to show that,” Albert said.

"Unfortunately, we had a Republican legislature so determined to make it harder to vote that there just was not any thought given to implementation," said Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause Texas. "At every level, this is just a mess." Common Cause Texas, like other local groups, has set up a hotline and is calling on voters to educate themselves on the new law. Gutierrez said advocates are also suggesting voters include both ID numbers on their application to ensure they aren't rejected.

The fight for voting rights goes on, even though every Senate Republican, joined by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), tried to shut it down on January 19. They refused to adjust a Senate rule best known for obstructing civil rights legislation. The filibuster rule – requiring 60 votes to advance most legislation if any senator objects – has been modified or waived more than 160 times in recent decades. Just in December, an exception was granted for legislation dealing with the debt ceiling, with the support of Manchin and Sinema and some Republicans. Yet somehow they decided voting rights were not important enough to warrant any adjustments to the rule.