By Natasha Kang
Natasha Kang is a senior at the University of California, Davis.
By 1965, Congress had discovered that existing federal anti‐discrimination laws were not nearly enough to prevail over the opposition of state officials. When the Department of Justice tried to eliminate discriminatory electoral practices on a case‐by‐case basis, it found that as soon as a discriminatory practice was proven unconstitutional, another one took its place. [1] Thus, a stronger piece of voting rights legislation, the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965, was passed to effectively uproot state disenfranchisement. [1] Sadly, the VRA did not bring about the end of disenfranchisement, as seen in the events following the 2010 United States Census.
After a national census is taken, state officials use census data to reconsider and redraw the boundaries of congressional and state legislative districts. [2] This formally allows state officials to incorporate shifts in the population and guarantee equal representation for their constituents with respect to the principles of the VRA. However, in reality, equal representation is far from guaranteed—and “redistricting” is becoming more well‐known as “racial gerrymandering” in the state of North Carolina.
Natasha Kang is a senior at the University of California, Davis.
By 1965, Congress had discovered that existing federal anti‐discrimination laws were not nearly enough to prevail over the opposition of state officials. When the Department of Justice tried to eliminate discriminatory electoral practices on a case‐by‐case basis, it found that as soon as a discriminatory practice was proven unconstitutional, another one took its place. [1] Thus, a stronger piece of voting rights legislation, the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965, was passed to effectively uproot state disenfranchisement. [1] Sadly, the VRA did not bring about the end of disenfranchisement, as seen in the events following the 2010 United States Census.
After a national census is taken, state officials use census data to reconsider and redraw the boundaries of congressional and state legislative districts. [2] This formally allows state officials to incorporate shifts in the population and guarantee equal representation for their constituents with respect to the principles of the VRA. However, in reality, equal representation is far from guaranteed—and “redistricting” is becoming more well‐known as “racial gerrymandering” in the state of North Carolina.
