GOP Lied About Using Racial Data To Gerrymander, Lawyers Say
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By Sam Levine, Huffington Post
Activists protest gerrymandering. Associated Press.
North Carolina Republicans lied to a federal court in 2017 when they claimed that they didn’t use racial data about voters as they drew new electoral maps, according to a blistering filing in a partisan gerrymandering lawsuit this week.
Common Cause of North Carolina, the lead plaintiff in the case, says the state’s legislative maps are so gerrymandered to benefit Republicans that they violate the state’s constitution. The daughter of Thomas Hofeller, a GOP master of gerrymandering who assisted lawmakers in drawing the maps, gave the files to the voting rights group. Stephanie Hofeller found the files after her father died last August, and lawyers representing Common Cause subpoenaed them….
After getting caught racially gerrymandering in 2017, the North Carolina lawmakers told the court late they didn’t use racial data when they drew the new maps….
The North Carolina lawmakers statements to the court came after the court had found in 2017 that 28 districts had been unlawfully racially gerrymandered….
“The implication that state legislators willfully misled the court about their ability to draw new maps for a special election to preserve ill-gotten super-majorities in both chambers for another year raises serious questions about the legitimacy of their hold on power in the state,” said former Attorney General Eric Holder, the chair of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which is helping fund the North Carolina lawsuit through a subsidiary. “They should now explain to the court – and the people of North Carolina – why they are so intent on manipulating the election process for their own benefit.”…
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Read also “Is There Voter Suppression in 2018? Here’s What It Could Look Like In The Midterms” here
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