HispanicTrending

July 8, 2017
By Josh Brodesky

What does gerrymandering really look like?

We’re not talking about the imbalanced maps. The silencing of minority votes. The cracking and packing of districts to achieve and preserve political hegemony. We’re talking about the process of making those districts.

What does that look like if we peel back the curtain?
Emails from the creation of the 2011 Texas maps give us a glimpse — if you can stand to look. They paint an ugly picture worth keeping in mind as the latest trial in Texas’ redistricting saga kicks off this week in federal court here in San Antonio. It’s a trial that could lead to the redrawing of districts before the 2018 election, and almost certainly will lead to yet another appeal.

Gerrymandering looks like attorney and Republican operative Eric Opiela emailing about “OHRVS,” short for “Optimal Hispanic Republican Voting Strength.”

Or, as he wrote in 2011 in a now infamous email, “a measure of how Hispanic, and Republican at the same time, we can make a particular census block.”

Got it? Making a census block look Hispanic enough to make potential legal challengers (which used to include the U.S. Justice Department) look away while still helping a GOP candidate win.

Gerrymandering looks like U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith wondering if he could “help” then-U.S. Rep. Francisco “Quico” Canseco, “If I gave him 3k more in bexar (either GOP or hispanics) and took edwards co in exchange.”

And it looks like Republican attorney Ryan Downton explaining to Smith why that would be a bad idea.

“I don’t think we mess with quico’s district — for your sake and his,” Downton wrote. “His is barely performing (or not depending on your measure) right now; add Rs (which will be Anglos) and you put a neon sign on it telling the court to redraw it. Bring down your numbers and you’ll have a Dem opponent every time. And they won’t be Lainey Melnick.”

Melnick, a Democrat, challenged Smith in 2010 and received a whopping 27.9 percent of the vote.

Gerrymandering looks like representatives choosing their constituents instead of their constituents choosing their representatives.

Smith said as much in a 2011 email: “There is one (precinct) which includes two condo buildings w many gop supporters and the sa country club adjacent to my dist,” he wrote. “Wld really like to get.”

He said he thought it might help Congressional District 35, represented by Democrat Lloyd Doggett much to the ire of Republicans, pass legal muster.

Such naked truth is exactly why a federal panel of judges found Texas lawmakers intentionally discriminated against minority voters in drawing these 2011 maps.

In a 2-1 ruling in March, the panel of judges invalidated three federal congressional districts: 23, 27 and 35. The judges found state lawmakers knowingly discriminated in making these districts, which are represented by Republicans Will Hurd and Blake Farenthold, and, of course, Doggett .

Canseco, the subject of so much Republican concern in those 2011 emails, used to represent District 23.

In a subsequent ruling, the judges found the Legislature intentionally diluted the clout of minority voters in state House districts across Texas.

The question now is whether the not-so-temporary, court-ordered 2013 maps are too similar to the flawed 2011 maps.
It’s a legal question, but how is it really a question? It’s obvious.

A recent Associated Press analysis declared Texas’ GOP the nation’s big gerrymandering winner. The analysis found gerrymandering led to four additional Republican U.S. House seats, “which was more than any other state.”

By contrast, Arizona, thanks to an independent redistricting commission, had some of the most equal representation in the country. Arizona’s independent commission had plenty of political drama, but it worked despite the politics surrounding it.
The end product served voters, not politicians.

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon hear arguments on whether gerrymandering for partisan purposes can be unconstitutional. Racial gerrymandering is already unconstitutional, which Texas has discovered after decades of legal challenges to its maps. But, in Texas, voting is so racially polarized — minorities mostly voting Democratic, whites mostly Republican — that racial vs. partisan gerrymandering is a distinction without a difference.

The point here is that gerrymandering is an invisible force that defines our political lives. Its worst manifestation is voter suppression. That’s what Opiela was championing with his email about making census blocks as Republican and Hispanic as possible. Dilute the Hispanic vote, and in turn, deny Latinos representation.

But it also fosters and fuels extreme views because gerrymandering ripples, creating super safe partisan districts.

Think of Lamar Smith, whose renowned climate denialism never costs him at the ballot box. Or think of Blake Farenthold, who shamefully pushed the debunked conspiracy theory around Seth Rich’s murder. If they represented more competitive districts, they just might have to moderate themselves.

As long as partisan interests shape these maps, voters will fail to get the representation they deserve.

Source: My San Antonio

July 9, 2017
by Jill Nolin

The state’s Hispanic voters turned out to vote at a rate higher than the national average last fall, but their showing at the polls continues to lag significantly behind other racial groups within the state.

About 53 percent of Georgia’s Hispanic voters came out for the 2016 presidential election, which was up from 47 percent in 2012, according to a new report from the nonpartisan Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials. Notably, about 73 percent of registered Hispanic women cast a ballot.

Nationally, nearly 48 percent of Hispanic voters participated, which was on par with turnout in 2012.

“Here in Georgia, we saw a dramatic increase, not only adding more voters but more voters actually going to the polls,” said Jerry Gonzalez, the association’s executive director.

Georgia gained more than 60,000 Hispanic voters since 2012, which was an increase of about 25 percent. Hispanics make up nearly 4 percent of the state’s registered voters, or a little more than 244,000 voters, according to the report’s count.

The report includes voters who identify as Hispanic when they register to vote or who have one of the thousands of known Latino surnames. The Secretary of State’s Office, which relies on what voters self-identify as, puts the number of registered Hispanic voters much lower.

Whitfield and Hall counties, in particular, saw “tremendous growth” since the last presidential election, the report said.

Hispanics now make up about 18 percent of the electorate in Whitfield County, which has the highest share of Hispanic voters in the state. They also account for about 11 percent of Hall County’s total voters.

In Whitfield County, about 51 percent of Hispanic voters cast a ballot last fall. That represented the largest jump in turnout from four years ago, with an increase of about 15 percentage points, according to the report.

The northwest Georgia county had the fourth largest growth rate since 2008, adding 3,091 Hispanic voters.

“This is just part of a growing pattern that we’ve been seeing,” said Trey Hood, a political science professor with the University of Georgia who provided voter turnout data for the report. “Hispanic voting strength is going to continue to grow in Georgia over the years.”

And unlike black voters, who tend to vote along with the Democratic Party, Hispanic voters generally lean left but may be “a little more up for grabs between the two political parties,” Hood said.

“I think both political parties are going to take more and more notice of Hispanic voters and try to bring them over into their coalition,” he said.

That’s what Gonzalez is hoping.

“It behooves candidates of all stripes to make sure that, whatever it is they are doing to reach out to their general electorate, that they take the Latino electorate as a viable segment of that,” he said.

“With elections getting tighter and tighter, a small percentage can certainly make a significant difference,” he added.

Hispanic turnout in Georgia may have surpassed the national participation rate for Hispanic voters in 2016, but it still fell behind the state’s white and black voter participation rates.

About 80 percent of white voters voted last fall, as did about 69 percent of black voters. Statewide, nearly 77 percent of registered voters cast a ballot in the November election.

It’s not clear why Hispanic turnout tends to lag, Hood said. Language barriers, for example, could play a role. A new voter may also have come from a country where voting simply is not viewed the same as it is in the United States.

“The real answer is we just don’t really know exactly, but that’s definitely the pattern,” Hood said.

Gonzalez said it’s significant that the state’s Latino voting outpaced the national rate, even if it does trail the participation of other groups.

He attributed the higher turnout in Georgia to concerns about immigration. President Donald Trump made building a wall along the country’s southern border and mass deportations a cornerstone of his campaign.

“Clearly Latinos, like everyone else, think the economy needs to improve, and jobs are an important driver of what we want to see happen,” Gonzalez said.

“However, the issue of immigration is sort of like a litmus test for Latinos in how they see whether candidates respect them or don’t,” he added.

Gonzalez said he expects those concerns to continue to drive up turnout next year, when Georgia elects a new governor and their congressional representatives. Even though Trump will not be on the ballot, Gonzalez said the president’s policies will be.

Source: The Valdosta Daily Times