February, 21 2018, 10:15am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Email:,press@lawyerscommittee.org
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law Files Motion Seeking Relief in the 2018 Midterm Election Cycle For Georgia Voters Impacted By Unlawful Gerrymandering
On heels of gerrymandering battles in Pennsylvania, latest federal suit focuses on extreme racial gerrymandering of Georgia state house plan.
WASHINGTON
The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law filed a Motion for a Preliminary Injunction in its lawsuit against the Georgia Secretary of State that seeks to remedy an unlawful racial gerrymander.
The lawsuit concerns Atlanta metro area Georgia House of Representatives Districts that were redrawn in 2015 for the sole purpose of helping white incumbents get reelected. The Motion filed late Tuesday powerfully demonstrates how race was used as a proxy to further partisan political interests in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Motion seeks an expedited hearing, allowing the federal court enough time to provide for a remedy before the 2018 elections.
"Georgia's mid-decade redistricting is an egregious example of the kind of racial gerrymandering that has no place in our democracy today," said Kristen Clarke, President and Executive Director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. "In swing districts where margins of victory were close, Georgia lawmakers reopened legislative maps for the sole purpose of locking in favored non-minority incumbents. Georgia is a place that provides a textbook example of the kind of the unlawful racial gerrymandering that infects too many states today. Our action seeks to fight back against the unlawful actions of Georgia legislators who have put their thumb on the scale of democracy at the expense of minority voters."
"The Georgia NAACP will not abide by the 2018 election being conducted under racially gerrymandered district boundary lines," said Phyllis Blake, Georgia NAACP President. "The right to vote rings hollow if elections are held in districts tailor-made to ensure that incumbents are reelected."
"It is past time for Georgia to end the practice of gerrymandering on the basis of race to serve partisan interests," said Bill Custer, Partner, Bryan Cave, LLP. "We are better than that, and voters should not have to suffer the effects in the 2018 election cycle."
"A citizen's right to have his or her vote be meaningful should not and cannot be dependent on the color of their skin," said Gregory Phillips, Partner, Munger Tolles & Olson, LLP. "Georgia's use of race as a means to achieve partisan advantage is unlawful and unacceptable and promotes the types of racial divisions that harm our country. Racial gerrymandering must end."
In 2015, the Republican-led Georgia General Assembly took the rare step of amending the boundaries of Georgia House Districts 105 and 111 mid-decade. The redistricting did not comply with constitutional requirements like the longstanding "one person, one vote" principle or statutory requirements such as the Voting Rights Act to protect the rights of minority voters. Nor did the General Assembly pass the new map to further traditional redistricting principles such as compactness or avoiding splitting counties, municipalities, and precincts. Rather, the sole reason for re-redistricting House Districts 105 and 111 was to protect the political interests of white Republican incumbents.
The General Assembly's perceived need to protect white Republican incumbents was motivated by the changing demographics in both House Districts 105 and 111. The General Assembly used racial data as a proxy for political affiliation in order to identify the percentage of African-American voters it needed to move out of Districts 105 and 111 to maintain its partisan advantage.
The Motion demonstrates that the General Assembly's re-redistricting in 2015 was motivated and accomplished by using race as a proxy for partisan affiliation. In the months leading up to the 2015 re-redistricting, Dan O'Connor, a staff member installed in the redistricting office by the Speaker of the House and the resident expert in assessing political performance of districts, repeatedly communicated with Legislators and others, emphasizing that redistricting was necessary due to changing racial demographics. For example, in August 2014, O'Connor emailed Chuck Efstration, who represented House District 104, explaining the explosive growth in black voter registration in Gwinnett County and that his district was "an obvious target" for "tweaking" District 105 by swapping out Republicans for Democrats.
Plaintiffs in the suit include Georgia State Conference of the NAACP and several individuals who live in the contested Districts. Working with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law as pro bono counsel are the law firms of Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP and Bryan Cave. The suit has been filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division.
To read a copy of the Preliminary Injunction filed Tuesday, click here.
The Lawyers' Committee is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to enlist the private bar's leadership and resources in combating racial discrimination and the resulting inequality of opportunity - work that continues to be vital today.
(202) 662-8600LATEST NEWS
Israel Bombs Yemen Saturday in Escalation with Houthis
The attack came a day after the Houthis claimed responsibility for a drone attack on Tel Aviv
Jul 20, 2024
Houthi-run media say Israeli air strikes Saturday targeted oil storage facilities in the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah and that there are an unspecified number of fatalities and injuries.
The attack came a day after the Houthis claimed responsibility for a drone attack on Tel Aviv that killed one person and struck just yards from a U.S. Embassy branch office.
Israel’s air strikes will not stop the Houthi's military operations in support of the Palestinian people, Houthi political bureau member Mohammed al-Bukhaiti said in a post on X, warning they will instead increase until the war in Gaza ends. “The Zionist entity will pay the price for targeting civilian facilities, and we will meet escalation with escalation,” al-Bukhaiti wrote.
Military and political analyst Elijah Magnier told Al Jazeera, “Is this going to change the course of action of a non-state actor that is motivated to support the people of Gaza? Certainly not,” Magnier said. “They’ve been given a perfect reason to increase the attacks. We have not seen the end of it – far from it,” he said.
In another post on X, the Houthis’ spokesman, Mohammed Abdulsalam, called the Israeli air strikes “a brutal Israeli aggression against Yemen that aims to deepen people’s suffering and to pressure Yemen to stop supporting Gaza.” Abdulsalam called the attack an Israeli “dream that will not come true. We affirm that this brutal aggression will only increase the determination of the Yemeni people and their valiant armed forces to be steadfast and to continue their support for Gaza. The Yemeni people are able to face all challenges for the sake of victory for oppressed Palestine and the people of Gaza, whose cause is the most just on earth.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Rights Group Urges DOJ to Investigate US-Bound Netanyahu for Genocide
"We believe ample credible evidence exists to sufficiently establish that serious crimes falling within U.S. criminal jurisdiction are systematically being perpetrated in Gaza," said the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Jul 19, 2024
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to visit Washington, D.C. next week, an American legal group on Friday pressured the U.S. Department of Justice to open a criminal investigation into him and other officials for committing or authorizing genocide, war crimes, and torture targeting Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Since Israel launched its retaliation for a Hamas-led attack on October 7, Israeli forces partly armed by the U.S. government have killed at least 38,848 people and wounded another 89,459—according to Gaza officials—while destroying civilian infrastructure and restricting the flow of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian enclave.
"We believe ample credible evidence exists to sufficiently establish that serious crimes falling within U.S. criminal jurisdiction are systematically being perpetrated in Gaza," says the Center for Constitutional Rights' (CCR) 23-page letter to Hope Olds, who leads the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section (HRSP) of the DOJ's Criminal Division.
"Given the frequent travel of Israeli officials and citizens to the United States resulting in their presence within U.S. jurisdiction, and recalling that HRSP is part of a coordinated, interagency effort to deny safe haven in the United States to human rights violators," the letter states, "the Department of Justice must urgently investigate and hold accountable those responsible for war crimes and other serious crimes being committed on a wide-scale basis in the occupied Gaza Strip, including potentially U.S. and U.S.-dual citizens."
The Israeli prime minister is expected to be in the United States from at least next Monday to Wednesday for a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden—who is currently isolating in his Delaware home due to a Covid-19 infection—and to address a joint session of Congress, despite objections from critics of Israel's war including some lawmakers.
"Netanyahu has killed more than 14,000 precious Palestinian children with U.S. weapons and support and is starving all of Gaza—and now sycophants in the White House and Congress are rolling out the red carpet for him," Maria LaHood, CCR's deputy legal director, said in a statement. "DOJ's Human Rights and Special Prosecution Section must exercise its mandate to investigate Netanyahu and hold him to account for his heinous crimes, just as it would an international criminal from any other country."
The group's letter says that "in light of Netanyahu's imminent visit, HRSP should prioritize investigating him... There is overwhelming evidence that under Netanyahu, Israeli forces and authorities are committing genocide, war crimes, and torture against Palestinians in Gaza, acts that are proscribed under federal criminal statutes and prosecutable by HRSP."
"As the most powerful political figure in Israel, Netanyahu also leads the Security Cabinet, as well as the recently dissolved War Cabinet—the two bodies responsible for setting the strategy for and directing the military assault on Gaza since October 7, 2023," the letter stresses. "He therefore bears criminal responsibility for the serious international crimes committed against the Palestinian population over the past nine months."
Various developments this week have elevated concerns for the people of Gaza. The World Health Organization said Friday that poliovirus has been detected in sewage samples at six locations in the strip, and Amnesty International on Thursday published interviews with 27 former detainees who described being tortured by Israeli forces.
A Wednesday report from Oxfam detailed what the group called Israel's "water war crimes" in Gaza. That same day, Israeli lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a resolution opposing "the establishment of a Palestinian state" west of the Jordan River—widely seen as an effort to send a message to Netanyahu ahead of his trip to D.C.
International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan is seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders, and Israel faces a South Africa-led genocide case at the International Court of Justice—which on Friday issued a nonbinding advisory opinion that Israel's occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is unlawful and must end "as rapidly as possible."
So far, legal efforts to hold the Biden administration accountable for enabling Israel's genocidal violence against Palestinians have been unsuccessful. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday affirmed a lower court's dismissal of a lawsuit against the president, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
CCR attorney Katherine Gallagher, who represented plaintiffs in the case, said that "this stunning abdication of the court's role to serve as a check on the executive even in the face of its support for genocide should set off alarm bells for all."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Death of 40 Haitians in Boat Fire Shows 'Crucial Need' for Safe, Legal Migration: UN
"Haiti's socio-economic situation is in agony," said one advocate. "The extreme violence over the past months has only brought Haitians to resort to desperate measures even more."
Jul 19, 2024
United Nations experts on Friday renewed calls to protect migrants following the death of at least 40 Haitians in a boat fire in the Atlantic Ocean.
The New York Timesreported that over 80 people were packed into the vessel when it caught fire off the coast of Cap-HaĂŻtien en route to the Turks and Caicos Islands.
The United Nations' International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that 41 migrants were rescued by the Haitian Coast Guard, with 11 of the survivors including burn victims rushed to the nearest hospital.
"This devastating event highlights the risks faced by children, women, and men migrating through irregular routes, demonstrating the crucial need for safe and legal pathways for migration," said Grégoire Goodstein, IOM's chief of mission for Haiti. "Haiti's socio-economic situation is in agony. The extreme violence over the past months has only brought Haitians to resort to desperate measures even more."
Haiti is enduring a humanitarian and security crisis in which over 1,000 people have been killed, wounded, or abducted by members of gangs that control much of the capital, Port-au-Prince. Hundreds of Kenyan police officers have been deployed to Haiti as part of a multinational force tasked with restoring order.
According to IOM:
The lack of economic opportunities, a collapsing health system, school closures, and the absence of prospects are pushing many to consider migration as the only way to survive... IOM research found that 84% of migrants returned had left to seek job opportunities abroad. For the vast majority of Haitians, regular migration is an extremely challenging journey to consider, let alone pursue, leaving many seeing irregular migration as their only option, a particularly life-threatening one in most instances.
IOM said the Haitian Coast Guard "has observed an increase in the number of attempts and departures by boat" in recent months.
"Coast guards from countries in the region, including the United States, the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and Jamaica have also reported a growing number of boats originating from Haiti being intercepted at sea," the group said. "More than 86,000 migrants have been forcibly returned to Haiti by neighboring countries this year. In March, despite a surge in violence and the closure of airports throughout the country, forced returns increased by 46%, reaching 13,000 forced returns in March alone."
Amid pressure from hundreds of advocacy groups—and alleged abuse of Haitian migrants by U.S. border authorities—the Biden administration in 2022 extended deportation protections, known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS), for more than 100,000 Haitians already in the United States through this August 3. This marked a departure from the administration's earlier mass deportation of Haitian asylum-seekers.
Last month, the administration further extended TPS eligibility for over 300,000 Haitians in the U.S. for an additional 18 months, a move hailed by migrant rights advocates.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular