By Lauren Burke
The Missouri House on Tuesday approved a congressional map designed to weaken one of the state’s two Democratic incumbents, intensifying the partisan redistricting battles that are shaping the political landscape ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
The measure, which passed in late August by a 90-to-65 vote, makes Missouri the second Republican-led state to adopt a plan targeting the seats of Black Democratic representatives. The Missouri Democrat most impacted, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), said that he will run for re-election. Earlier this summer, Texas Republicans pushed through a map that could put as many as five Democratic lawmakers at risk. Democrats in California have mounted a counteroffensive of their own: last month, the Legislature advanced a proposal to the ballot that would reshape five Republican-held districts.
As the vote was taking place in Missouri, thirteen members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including Rep. Cleaver, spoke emphatically about the state of play for Black elected officials targeted by redistricting. They spoke about what happened in Texas and how they knew that other states would follow. The group was strong in their statements on the current situation. “Texas has more African Americans than any other state in this country right now. Under the proposed maps, they want to make it so that Texas only has two districts in which African Americans have an opportunity to choose their representation. What does that mean for black voices in Texas? That means that it is approximately 1/5 the voting strength of their white Texan neighbors. That is what is going to be, not three-fifths, but we are going to be reduced to 1/5, so my colleagues have laid out a number of things that they believe are going on as to why it is that this is happening. But I’m going to start with number one, Trump himself. He’s racist,” said Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas).
“We will not be silenced. They’ve tried to bury us before, not knowing that we were seeds. We will grow and we will be resilient, just as we have time and time before,” added Crockett. “We are about to experience something that we never thought we’d see in our lifetimes, especially after having experienced what happened at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, which is probably the reason a good many of us in Congress are in Congress. It was at the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday that John Lewis and a host of other people of goodwill suffered grave, gross, and inhumane injustices… Bloody Sunday is the reason we have the Voting Rights Act of 1965. We would not but for Bloody Sunday,” said Rep. Al Green (D-Texas).
“We are going to fight this. We are not going to back down. And I believe that the Voting Rights Act will be upheld and that these maps in Texas will be overturned. But again, Texas is just the beginning. This is a nationwide fight, and it’s bigger than who holds the majority in the House of Representatives. This is about maintaining our democracy and our republic,” Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas). When asked by Black Press USA whether or not there is an actual plan to combat what is happening to Black elected officials around the country, several members answered yes. Rep. Veasey added that perhaps there needed to be a special group to deal with the redistricting attacks against Black members at the DNC. The members also relayed that legal strategies are ongoing, and in some cases have been for years, on redistricting.
