In the 2010 elections, Republicans won control of the legislature in the state of North Carolina for the first time since right after the Civil War. Immediately following their electoral victory, they hired a GOP expert from Washington D.C. to travel to North Carolina to redraw the districts of the state, and then they quickly passed it in the state legislature via a party line vote.
This so-called expert was brought in to "Gerrymander" the districts of the state, meaning he was tasked with redrawing district lines in a favorable way as to protect GOP incumbents and add GOP Congressional seats by weeding out the Democrats. Basically, they draw the district lines in a manner that attenuates Democratic voters from incumbent Republican districts, and then they end up either jam-packing them into only a few districts or diluting their strength by spreading them and their votes around in multiple districts.
In North Carolina, 95% of registered Republicans are White Americans, leaving only 5% of Republicans to represent minorities. 96% of the state's registered African American voters are Democrats. The Republican party is basically an all white party in that state (and in the South, in general), while the Democrats of North Carolina are highly diverse.
The politicians are using the Cape Fear River in North Carolina to cram in as many black people as possible into just a few Congressional Districts. Half of one district, for instance, begins on one bank of the river and connects to its other half farther downstream. The two halves share the river to comply with the contiguous territorial requirements for a district. Essentially, the Republicans are splitting precincts to include the black people in one district, while purging them from another.
The redistricting procedure has allowed the Republicans to whitewash the districts surrounding African American majority areas. They take all the black people out of the surrounding districts and stuff them into a black majority district to ensure a majority of voters in a majority of the districts are white and predictably Republican. In the example provided, the southern half of the district was made to include another 100,000 voters, mostly black and Democratic, with the northern majority black and Democratic half of the newly created district.
By design, 49% of African Americans in North Carolina have been jam-packed into only 3 of North Carolina's 13 Congressional Districts, and Republicans further undermine the potential political strength of the rest of the black voters by spreading them around the other 10 Congressional Districts. The NAACP calls these measures an act to re-segregate the South. North Carolina state senator Dan Blume says "its a concerted effort to ghettoize the black vote in North Carolina." When asked whether its just power politics or racism, Blume was quick to respond by saying "it's racism and it weakens the country."
Furthermore, the whitewashing of the surrounding districts is also deepening the racial divide already at play in the politics of the South. In the "Deep South's" five states, SC, GA, AL, MS, and LA, only 9 Democratic Congressman exist, and only one of them is white. By 2013, however, it is highly likely there will no longer be any white Democrats in the South because the current one is most likely going to lose his seat after Gerrymandering has taken his hometown of Savannah, GA out of his Congressional District.
The Civil Rights Act of 1965 guarantees black voters "an equal opportunity" to vote on and elect any candidate of their choice. However, when black people are overstuffed into districts of their own, the strength and effectiveness of their vote is greatly weakened. The collective strength of their voice is diminished because now African Americans are voting in the same district, and can only influence its outcome instead of being able to influence the outcome of multiple districts.
Currently in North Carolina, for instance, Democrats have 7 seats in Congress and Republicans have only 6. Next year, Republicans will most likely end up with 10 seats. The only 3 Democratic seats will be from the 3 majority African American districts. Black incumbents currently hold two of the districts being jam-packed with additional black voters. The other Democratic seat is held by a Caucasian American, David Price, and he has also seen an influx of African American voters due to the redistricting. Brad Miller, another current Democratic Congressman from Raleigh, was elected ten years ago when he won the additional Congressional seat granted to North Carolina because of an increase in population. This year, however, 100,000 voters, the vast majority of which are black, were redistricted along with Congressman Miller's home into the other side of Raleigh and into Price's district.
It is clear the Republicans are dividing the district lines according to race. It is also clear they are attempting to stuff as many black people into their own few districts as possible. They are literally separating black voters from voting at the same election office and on the same ballot as white voters. The Republicans are also clearly attempting to undermine the collective political strength of African Americans, and have designed a system which minimizes the impact of their vote. However, are these actions really acts of segregation?
Is Republican Gerrymandering an attempt to re segregate the South?
