Florida
Florida is losing two Black-led congressional districts
On the chopping block: Florida’s fifth Congressional District, presently represented by Democrat Al Lawson, which connects Black communities from Tallahassee to Jacksonville. Underneath the brand new map, Jacksonville, the town with the biggest Black inhabitants within the state, is split into two Republican-leaning districts.
Additionally skewered: the tenth Congressional District, presently represented by Rep. Val Demings, a Black Democrat. The brand new map reduces Black voters within the Orlando-area district. Demings is presently working for the US Senate.
The map is predicted to develop Republicans’ present 16-11 seat benefit in congressional districts to as many as 20 out of 28 districts — and probably assist Republicans flip management of the US Home of Representatives this November.
Many Democrats and voting rights advocates denounced the transfer and even tried to cease the passage of the brand new maps with a protest on the state Home ground.
State Rep. Angie Nixon, one of many Democrats who protested loudly on the Home ground, has referred to as the map “an assault on democracy” and DeSantis “a bully.”
The map was pushed by DeSantis himself. The GOP governor and certain 2024 presidential contender bucked custom this 12 months by injecting himself into the decennial redistricting course of.
The map he signed into regulation this previous week, he says, is “race impartial.”
Voting rights teams problem map
Lower than 24 hours after the GOP-supported maps have been handed, the primary authorized problem was filed. The lawsuit was filed by a coalition of civil rights teams, together with Black Voters Matter and the League of Girls Voters of Florida.
The transfer in Florida comes in opposition to the backdrop of rising political energy for folks of shade — and fears that redistricting maneuvers will muffle their voices.
Democrats made up 83% of the members of shade, whereas 17% of the non-White members have been Republican.
Election drive invoice signed into regulation
The brand new map is simply one of many attention-getting legal guidelines enacted in Florida in latest days.
Voting rights teams have raised alarms that an election police unit underneath the purview of a partisan governor may flip right into a political weapon.
Throughout a information convention, DeSantis stated native election supervisors and prosecutors do not essentially have the experience to research voting-related complaints and the brand new officers will.
“We simply wish to make certain no matter legal guidelines are on the books that these legal guidelines are enforced,” the governor added.
JFK group profiles braveness
The muse’s honorees additionally embody one other little-known determine, whose life was disrupted for merely doing her job: Fulton County, Georgia, election employee Wandrea “Shaye” Moss. She had grow to be the goal of false accusations that she had processed fraudulent ballots for President Joe Biden within the final presidential election.
She and Ruby Freeman — her mom who served as a short lived Fulton County election employee through the 2020 election — had confronted racist taunts and dying threats within the aftermath of these accusations.
(The ladies not too long ago reached a settlement with One America Information Community of their defamation go well with in opposition to the outlet, in response to a standing report filed with the US District Courtroom in Washington late final week. The phrases of the settlement weren’t disclosed.)
In its reward for Moss, the JFK basis stated that: “Regardless of the onslaught of random, undeserved, and malicious assaults, Moss continues to serve within the Fulton County Division of Registration & Elections doing the arduous and unseen work to run our democracy.”