This is an adapted excerpt from the May 11 episode of “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
Tens of thousands of people had already voted when Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry stopped elections that were underway in his state last week.
In response to the conservative justices on the Supreme Court effectively ending the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Republican governor declared an emergency and suspended congressional primary elections, giving Republicans enough time to erase the majority-Black congressional districts in a state where a third of the population is Black.
Sure, the election had already started and tens of thousands of people had already voted. But, according to the governor, voters in his state should not be that concerned.
There’s a reason why people are calling this Jim Crow 2.0.
During an interview on “60 Minutes,” Landry was asked about the more than 45,000 ballots that had already been returned due to his decision. After confirming that those ballots would be discarded, he told CBS News’ Cecilia Vega, “It’s not a big deal. It’s not my fault.”
In response to Landry’s decision, the residents of Louisiana began an effort to recall him. They will need to gather more than 500,000 valid signatures from voters by October to move forward, which will not be easy.
But honestly, there are a lot of people in Louisiana right now who are rip-roaring mad about what’s going on, understandably. Last week, protesters packed into the state Capitol building as Republicans worked to jam through the new maps.
It was the same thing in Alabama, where Republicans are trying to take away at least one of the two congressional districts represented by a Black lawmaker in that state, even though more than a quarter of the population in that state is Black. Protesters sang the gospel song “We Shall Overcome” outside the House chamber. Some of them were dragged away by security guards.
Same thing in Tennessee, where Republicans have passed new maps that break up majority-Black Memphis so Republicans can run the table. Protesters blew whistles, booed and shouted “shame” as Republican lawmakers walked in to cast their votes.
Under the new map passed by Republicans, a big slice of Black residents in Memphis will now have their votes folded into white-majority Williamson County, which literally still has a Confederate flag on its county seal.
There’s a reason why people are calling this Jim Crow 2.0. This really is an effort to drag us back to the post-Reconstruction era, after the Civil War, the so-called “redemption” of the old Confederacy, where the slave states reverted to giving Black Americans zero say in their own democracy.
On Monday, the conservatives on the Supreme Court gave their blessing to the “Black voters need not apply” map in Alabama, setting aside a lower court ruling that had blocked the state from using the Republican-drawn map.
Nothing about this is subtle. But it’s clear Americans recognize what is happening. They are energized and they are fighting it in the halls of our state capitols.
Allison Detzel contributed.
The post Voters are on the front line, fighting the GOP’s redistricting war appeared first on MS NOW.
