News Clips

This month, through litigation challenging North Carolina’s blatant partisan gerrymander, Common Cause obtained critical documents revealing that Republican redistricting guru Thomas Hofeller encouraged party and Census Bureau officials to add the citizenship question because it would significantly harm the political power of Latino communities and be “advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites.”

Kathay Feng, national redistricting director for Common Cause, said the Jones-Hofeller emails cast further doubt on the government’s claims.“Why would she use her personal email? Why would she email a partisan operative about a topic that was not under consideration at the Census Bureau?” Feng said. “The new documents eliminate any doubt about the link between the Republican gerrymandering mastermind and the citizenship question.”

The advocacy group Common Cause said in court documents submitted in Raleigh on Thursday that the Hofeller files include new evidence showing how North Carolina Republicans misled a federal court to prolong the life of their map of state legislative districts, which had been ruled unconstitutional.The Republicans told the federal court hearing the map case that they would not be able to draw new legislative districts and hold public hearings on them in time for a proposed special election in late 2017 or early 2018. In fact, Common Cause said, Mr. Hofeller’s files show that almost all the work was already done: proposed new boundaries had been drawn for more than 97 percent of the state’s proposed Senate districts and 90 percent of House districts.

On Thursday, Common Cause President Karen Hobert Flynn said in a release that documents revealed “that the plan to add the citizenship question was hatched by the Republicans’ chief redistricting mastermind to create an electoral advantage for Republicans and non-Hispanic whites.” She said the documents contradict testimony by administration officials that they sought to add the question to benefit Latino voters.

Common Cause, which first obtained the hard drives, said the revelations on them were a wake-up call to supporters of the American system. “Now that the plan has been revealed, it’s important for all of us — the courts, leaders and the people — to stand up for a democracy that incudes every voice,” said Kathay Feng, the group’s national redistricting director.

“If we miss our opportunity right now, we have to wait another decade to fix the problems,” said Jay Young, executive director of Common Cause Illinois, a Chicago-based nonprofit that promotes government reform. “Some of those folks are going to disappear into the shadows.”