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Pamela,
When is it too close to an election to change the maps?
Just last year, the Supreme Court greenlit the redistricting crisis in Texas — ruling that a lower court couldn’t strike down Texas’s new, illegal, racially gerrymandered map because the primary election was already underway, with three months to go.
In their own words: “The District Court improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections.”
Yet, last month, the federal courts permitted lawmakers in Louisiana and Alabama to cancel ongoing elections — in which tens of thousands of people had already voted — to pass new, manipulated maps.
When our legal system is working as it should, there’s a legal principle, Purcell, which, when applied correctly, states that federal courts should avoid intervening too close to an election. Our affiliate, the National Redistricting Foundation, issued a report earlier this year warning that Purcell wasn’t being applied consistently—and now we have the proof, with devastating consequences. Alabama and Louisiana’s election denialism was made possible when the Supreme Court discarded legal principles and set new, arbitrary standards.
It’s a disgrace, and it shows us what we’re truly up against: A concerted effort, backed by the U.S. Supreme Court, to tear down key pillars of representative democracy to consolidate partisan power.
We’re in the middle of one of the most important battles we’ll ever face to defend democracy. And we need to fight like hell to defeat the anti-democracy forces working to silence our voices.
Thanks — we can’t do this without you,
Jacob Carrel
Deputy Director of Litigation & Policy
Redistricting Action
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