Democrats push for new Voting Rights Act before maps are drawn

Over the weekend and during a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing Monday, House Democrats stated their intention to vote on the measure as soon as next week. Civil rights groups have pushed for the passage of the new bill for months, but the release of new census data last week brought the issue to a head.

Wendy Weiser, vice president of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, argued that allowing redistricting to proceed without a new Voting Rights Act could allow minority voting rights to backslide. Weiser told the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties on Monday that Congress should pass a new law that would allow the Justice Department to review election law changes, such as new congressional maps, before they go into effect.

“This is a perilous moment for the nation’s commitment to equal citizenship, an era of voting rights retrenchment still. The current problem of voting discrimination and vote suppression is enormous and it is about to get much bigger as states and localities across the country begin their redistricting,” Weiser said.

Last week, the Census Bureau released a trove of detailed data that states and local governments will use for once-a-decade redistricting. Democrats in Congress along with voting rights advocates argued that some states could use the data to restrict the voting power of growing minority groups, such as Hispanic and Latino voters.