Five justices have given the high court’s approval to blatant, extreme, and explicit partisan gerrymandering — granting politicians unfettered permission to rig districts to their liking.

This is an extremely dangerous and disappointing ruling. But our movement to end gerrymandering is far from over.

In our democracy, voters should choose who gets to represent them. But partisan gerrymandering flips that on its head — letting politicians pick their voters by drawing legislative districts to benefit themselves, and box out the competition.

And nothing illustrates that better than what happened in North Carolina

In 2016, a federal court struck down North Carolina’s congressional districts as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Politicians had blatantly rigged the legislative map to limit Black voters’ representation and make sure white votes counted more than everyone else’s.

But once the court ordered legislators to draw a new map, North Carolina Republicans didn’t learn their lesson. Instead, they proudly declared that the new map wouldn’t be a racial gerrymander, but a partisan gerrymander — giving Republican voters a bigger say than Democratic ones.

It’s the height of shamelessness… even after that first legal rebuke, these politicians wouldn’t stop trying to decide the outcome of elections in every district — before the votes were even cast.

Today’s ruling doesn’t do anything to impede state-level efforts for reform — where we can take the power to draw legislative districts away from politicians, and give it back to the people.

If the Supreme Court won’t do what’s right, we must now focus laser-like on the states…

That’s why we’ve set up the End Gerrymandering Emergency Fund — to counter partisan operatives who surely will take today’s ruling as a “full speed ahead” signal to draw rigged maps, pack and crack voters, and do whatever they can to manipulate our democracy for their own advantage.

Common Cause MUST take action to stop them. And the End Gerrymandering Emergency Fund will enable us to do just that — fighting and winning the important state-level fights to come. 

 

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