- US Rep. Jeff Jackson, a Democrat, predicted he could be focused by gerrymandering Republicans.
- Jackson earlier filed a invoice to curtail gerrymandering when he was a North Carolina state lawmaker.
- The invoice by no means made it to a vote. Now Jackson says the state’s GOP has him on the chopping block.
A US Congressman who tried to make it unlawful for politicians to gerrymander could also be ousted from his congressional district.
Why? Due to gerrymandering.
First-term US Rep. Jeff Jackson, a Democrat from North Carolina, issued a warning to his constituents in a video final week, saying the redistricting course of could be “brutal.”
“In about six weeks, the state legislature right here in North Carolina goes to redraw the congressional map, and it appears to be like like they are going to attempt to use that as a chance to take me out,” Jackson mentioned. “The bulk get together within the state legislature needs one in every of their very own on this district, so they’ll bend it and stretch it to try to make that occur.”
Gerrymandering refers back to the apply of drawing political districts that give one get together a lopsided benefit over the opposite in an election.
Boundaries for state and federal districts are redrawn each 10 years following the federal census to make sure every district comprises roughly the identical variety of individuals. Often, the get together in energy is the one accountable for the redistricting — that means each Republicans and Democrats have benefited from gerrymandering.
Within the final spherical of redistricting, 26 states authorized maps on a partisan foundation, the Brennan Middle for Justice reported in 2022. Simply 4 states — Arizona, California, Colorado, and Michigan — used totally unbiased commissions to attract their maps. In an opinion in June, the US Supreme Court docket mentioned Alabama violated the Voting Rights Act by creating congressional districts that discriminated towards Black voters.
In 2015, when he was a member of the state’s senate, Jackson filed a invoice to determine an unbiased redistricting fee in North Carolina to attract voting districts as a substitute of the state’s lawmakers. However that invoice by no means made it out of committee.
In his video, Jackson mentioned it wasn’t a shock to him that he’d be focused by redistricting, including that he does not assume he would be the solely Democrat impacted.
“That is what can occur in states the place politicians are allowed to attract the political map, which is a nasty system, and plenty of states do not permit it, and once I was within the state legislature, the primary invoice I ever filed was to ban politicians from having the ability to draw the map, and so they despatched that invoice to a committee that hasn’t met in over 20 years,” Jackson mentioned.
A spokesperson for Jackson’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to Insider’s request for remark. Reached for remark by way of electronic mail, the chief of the North Carolina Common Meeting’s Republican caucus, Rep. Jason Saine, solely mentioned that Jackson ought to “elaborate” on his claims.
