For nearly two decades, U.S. Representative George Kenneth Butterfield has faithfully served the residents and citizens of North Carolina’s 1st District. When he announced his retirement in November 2020, Rep. Butterfield and his constituents became the first victims of partisan redistricting or, the more stark term, gerrymandering.
"Every ten years, the North Carolina legislature enacts a new congressional map," said Rep. Butterfield, chairman of the House Administration Subcommittee on Elections, in a video announcing his retirement. "The map that was recently enacted by the legislature is a partisan map. It is racially gerrymandered and it will disadvantage African-American communities all across the first congressional district."
The Brennan Center for Justice defines gerrymandering as the intentional manipulation of district (state, local or federal) boundaries to discriminate against a group of voters based on their political viewpoints or race.
This manipulation has faced harsh criticism from civil and human rights groups, including the NAACP. NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson calls political gerrymandering intentional. "It is the defining moment on who will have power in legislative seats. Yes it is intentional. And yes, it is targeted at African-American communities," Johnson said.
"We must be assured we change the trajectory of public policy, so it doesn't have a negative impact on the Black community at large,” said Johnson, former NAACP Mississippi state conference president. “One way to do that is by pushing back against partisan gerrymandering"
The NAACP has collaborated with others in the fight against partisan gerrymandering while joining various lobbying and litigation efforts to ensure that Rep. Butterfield's constituents and others like them maintain a voice in the legislative process.
In a recent expository piece on gerrymandering for the Brennan Center, Julia Kirschbaum and Michael Li said, "The current redistricting cycle will be the first since the Supreme Court's 2019 ruling that gerrymandering for party advantage cannot be challenged in federal court, which has set the stage for perhaps the most ominous round of map drawing in the country's history.”
This map drawing cycle, particularly in southern states like North Carolina that have Republican-controlled legislatures, seems intent on ensuring that Black voters and their legislators lose their voices in the lawmaking process.
Rep. Butterfield finds these attempts both troubling and punitive for African-American voters.
"In this process, African-American voters come up short," said Rep. Butterfield, who serves as one of eight chief deputy whips in the House Democratic Caucus. "They come up short because they are penalized for being Democrats and they are penalized for being a racial minority."
In the case of the North Carolina 1st congressional district, voters are being gerrymandered through the process of "cracking."
Johnson defines cracking as a map-drawing tactic that splits Black voters to decrease their political power. "Cracking happens when state legislators or their map drawers develop boundaries that disperse a big population," he said.
"During the process, policymakers create district lines that disperse Black voters in several different districts, but none of the individual districts have enough Black voters to impact the outcome of the election," said Johnson. "These strategies are used to minimize the impact of African Americans, nullifying their ability to elect candidates of their choice or their public policy."
For Rep. Butterfield and his constituents, cracking has resulted in the removal of the city of Greenville from his current district and its split into three different Republican-leaning districts. The congressman believes this state legislative decision will disadvantage his voters and African-Americans across the country.
"For my district the new map has removed the city of Greenville from the district, making it almost impossible for thousands of African-American voters to get their preferred candidate,” said Rep. Butterfield. “We are now a toss-up District, which will make it very difficult for an African-American candidate, male or female, to win the district. It's going to be very difficult and very expensive."
In today's Congress, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) represents nearly a fourth of the House Democratic Caucus. Through redistricting and partisan gerrymandering, Republican-led state legislatures will diminish CBC membership and the CBC’s voice in the legislative process.
"We are beginning to see real maneuvering to diminish our voting strength as a caucus through this redistricting process," said Rep. Butterfield, chairman of the CBC between 2015 and 2017. "And African Americans are feeling the brunt of it throughout the country."
For decades, the Voting Rights Act has stood in the way of attempts to crack majority-minority districts. Following the Shelby vs. Holder Supreme Court decision, which gutted Section 5 of the act, cracking has been a popular way to limit Black voters' access to legislative policymaking.
During this redistricting year, the cracking method has been utilized in Nevada, Georgia, Texas, Alabama and South Carolina.
In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis (R) submitted a redistricting proposal earlier this year that produces a similar outcome. If passed, the proposal would eliminate the seat of U.S. Rep Al Lawson (D-FL-05) while simultaneously consolidating the districts of two Republicans (each of whom are Hispanic and African American).
U.S. Rep. Lawson, a onetime 28-year veteran of the Florida state legislature, believes the move to be unusual and a sign of how far partisans will go to eliminate minority representation.
"Florida is a state with so many nationalities, a large percentage of minority groups, and as a result, that is supposed to be great for the state to have such a mixture of cultures at the legislative table," said Rep. Lawson. "For some reason, the governor has not been concerned at all in drawing a map that protects those interests. Just look at the state legislature; the Republicans control the house, the Republicans control the Senate, and it has been that way for the last 20 years."
Rep. Lawson continued, "It is not right for African Americans not to have a voice in the political process or to [not] have people lobbying for them that look like them in Washington."
While DeSantis' proposal to crack congressional districts held by Black and Brown legislators will likely face defeat, Florida for decades has been the poster child of packing, another form of gerrymandering.
The Brennan Center defines packing, the opposite of cracking, as a method of drawing maps that cram certain voters into as few districts as possible. In layman’s terms, packing creates supermajority-minority districts. While “packed” groups are likely to select preferred candidates in their districts, their voting strength is weakened everywhere else.
Packing and cracking state and federal legislative districts are not limited to the Republican-controlled legislatures. In Maryland, New York, and Illinois – all states controlled by Democrats – gerrymandering and partisan map drawing has faced consternation and criticism.
With the 2022 midterms just months away, U.S. Senate gridlock has stalled many of the avenues to stop gerrymandering. The pending John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would reinstate the power of the Justice Department to weigh in on voting procedural changes and force voting map pre-clearance for states with a history of voter suppression, including North Carolina and Florida.
In addition, the Freedom to Vote Act would bar partisan gerrymandering. If signed into law, the bill could trigger a plethora of lawsuits to force states to draw new congressional lines that put voters’ voices above that of partisan lawmakers.
As the nation's political division continues to grow, the question now remains: will gerrymandering make those divisions too vast for our democracy to survive?
