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http://nnpa.org/nnpa_newswire/making-the-case-for-investing-in-hbcus/
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http://www.triceedneywire.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7883:ben-jealous-confirms-run-for-maryland-governorship-by-hazel-trice-edney&catid=54&Itemid=208
WILL REPUBLICANS
CONTINUE
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http://www.triceedneywire.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7883:ben-jealous-confirms-run-for-maryland-governorship-by-hazel-trice-edney&catid=54&Itemid=208
CASH IN THE APPLE
for 6-15-17
By Cash Michaels
THE
REDISTRICTING FARCE – So when will it end? I mean how many more Mondays do we
have to go through with the US Supreme Court nailing our Republican-led NC
legislature to the legal wall for some conniving law or plan they thought they
could go get away with?
Last week,
you’ll recall, the US High Court ruled that North Carolina’s legislative
redistricting maps were (surprise, surprise) unconstitutional because 28 voting
districts drawn by the Republicans in 2011 “stacked and packed”
African-American voters, a classic case of racial gerrymandering if ever there
was one.
The week
before that, the High Court sent a case back to the NC Supreme Court for a
third time because when the GOP had the majority on it, they apparently had no
problem with all of the racial gerrymandering their brethren in the state
legislature thought they should get away with.
The week
before that, the most high Supremes nailed North Carolina Republican lawmakers
for drawing racially gerrymandered districts in the congressional First and
Twelfth districts, effectively cramming all the black voters they could find in
both so that they could not influence the other 11 congressional races.
And
finally, the week before that, US Supreme Court didn’t even bother to review
last year’s US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling striking down North
Carolina’s wretched 2013 voter ID law.
You know,
the one that the Fourth Circuit ruled targeted the black vote in our state with
“…almost surgical precision.
What a
disgraceful record when it comes to the Republican efforts to suppress the
black vote in order to gain and maintain power in our state. And with the US
Supreme Court ruling repeatedly that all of this stems from the 2011
restricting maps drawn by Republicans, that means that every election held
since 2011, based on those maps, should be null and void, because the voting
districts were illegally drawn.
So the
Republican state lawmakers pushing all of these crazy laws down our throats,
like the most recent one where you don’t need a gun permit to carry a concealed
weapon in most places, weren’t even legally elected.
And so when
can we get new, more constitutionally drawn voting district maps in places? A
federal three-judge panel ruled last year that the maps should be redrawn last
March, with special elections held this November.
The
Republicans appealed that ruling to the High Court and a stay until that order
got top judicial review.
Well, last
week, the US Supreme Court came back agreeing with that three-judge panel, but
ordered that panel to reconsider the redrawing of the maps, and special
elections.
Democratic
Gov. Roy Cooper ordered state lawmakers into special session last week to begin
redrawing the new maps, but (surprise, surprise), Republican leaders refused to
do it, saying Cooper’s order is unconstitutional, and they’d rather wait until
that three-judge panel orders them to redraw.
But do you
see the trick here? That panel orders new maps and special elections, and the
Republicans simply appeal that to the US Supreme Court again, eating up
valuable time, and pretty much assuring that 2017 special elections can never
happen.
This isn’t
over by a longshot folks. The Republicans have vowed to pass new voter ID laws,
and there’s no telling what they’ll come up with if they redraw the maps.
They’re goal is to have death grip on
political power at any cost.
No
political party should have that. There should be a nonpartisan redistricting
commission in place to take the politics out of voting maps. But guess who
doesn’t such a creature to draw fair, unbiased voting districts for us?
Please, pay
close attention to what happens next.
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TO DELAY REDRAWING
VOTING MAPS?
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
When the US
Supreme Court last week failed to affirm a lower court’s order that the
Republican-led NC General Assembly immediately redraw it’s 2011 redistricting
map and hold special elections this year because of racial gerrymandering, it
unwittingly gave the GOP the tools to make sure special elections aren’t likely
happen in 2017.
State House
and Senate Republican legislative leaders flat out rejected Gov. Roy Cooper’s
call for a concurrent 14-day Special Session to immediately redraw the voting
maps, saying that it was “unconstitutional” for the Democratic governor to do
so without “extraordinary occasions.”
“ [As
president of the North Carolina Senate] I ruled his demand for a Special
Session unconstitutional,” Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, a Republican, said during a
2:18 Youtube video to GOP supporters.
Forest went
on to say that the NC General Assembly was already in session, and that the
“federal court requiring redistricting ordered it to occur during the next
session, that is a regular session of the General Assembly. The drafting of
legislative districts is not necessary until the 2018 election cycle, which is
over a year away (April 2018).”
Lt. Gov.
Forest continued, “ For this reason, the governor’s demand for immediate
action, does not meet the constitutional mandate of an extraordinary occasion.”
“In short,
we have plenty of time to act,” Forest added assuredly.
He
continued that “the only reason to order districts redrawn now is to force a
special election this year, other than the normal cycle of 2018.”
To do so
would violate the state Constitution, Forest said, which state’s that lawmakers
are to serve two-year terms. A special election would force all state lawmakers
to cut their terms short to run again this year after many were elected in
2016, this time via the new maps, for an abbreviated term. Then, after being
reelected, they would have to gear up again for the regular 2018 reelection
campaign, albeit again by the new maps.
Lt. Gov.
Forest also made clear that neither he, nor any of his fellow Republicans,
would tolerate new voting maps drawn by the federal court, and hinted that
that’s what Gov. Cooper is really striving for in his call for lawmakers to
immediately get back to the drawing board.
“Again, our
state Constitution is clear, legislative authority rest solely with the NC
General Assembly. Nowhere in our Constitution is this duty shared with, or
abdicated to the courts.”
“Be
reminded…,” Forest concluded, “ what the progressive movement cannot attain at
the ballot box, they are attempting to attain from the courts.”
House
Republicans 71-44 to cancel Gov. Cooper’s special session, calling it a
“political stunt.”
To Democrats,
fighting words, to say the least.
“The Supreme Court has issued its decision. The courts have spoken
– unanimously – on this issue,” said Senate Minority Leader Sen. Dan Blue
(D-Wake)
“We have been operating under unconstitutional legislative maps for
the past five years. For Republicans to suggest that this issue is not
extraordinary is to show contempt for the US Supreme Court, the district courts
and the North Carolina voters.
“Republicans can try to delay justice,” Sen. Blue continued, “..
but they cannot ignore it.”
Saying that “…my Republican colleagues may
be dragging their feet to fix racially gerrymandered districts and are slow to
abide by a process that should begin immediately.,” Sen. Paul Lowe (D-Forsyth)
went on to say, “Fixing these maps before the legislature adjourns will save
the time and taxpayer money that a special session later in the year would
cost. There is no reason for delay. North Carolina voters deserve to know what
districts they will be voting in next year.
But beyond not jeopardizing their
majorities in both the state House and Senate, why else would legislative
Republicans not want to redraw
unconstitutional gerrymandered voting districts right now?
“Delay tactics poll favorably to
their base, and has positive impact on their fundraising,” says Rep. Evelyn
Terry (D-Forsyth), who joined with her
colleagues of the Democrat-led NC Legislative Black Caucus last week to call
for Republican leadership to immediately redraw the voting lines.
In it’s
ruling last week, the US Supreme court directed the federal three-judge panel
to decide again when the voting maps should be redrawn, and if special
elections should take place, and when.
Last
Friday, that judicial panel, promising to act promptly, requested that attorneys for the state, state
lawmakers and the NC State Board of Elections, to submit their motions “as
expeditiously as possible.”
On Monday,
Gov. Cooper, flanked by Senate Minority Leader Blue and House Minority Leader
Rep Darren Jackson (D-Wake) called for special elections to be held before the
2018 legislative session.
“North Carolina shouldn’t hold another session or
have another budget voted on by an unconstitutional legislature,” Cooper said.
“Maps should be drawn this month and an election held before next year’s
legislative session. If the legislature doesn’t do its job soon the courts
should.”
-30-
STATE NEWS BRIEFS FOR 06-15-17
NCNAACP DEMANDS THAT
LAWMAKERS “CEASE AND DESIST”
[RALEIGH]
Demanding that state lawmaker “cease and desist” passing anymore legislation
until new, constitutional voting maps are drawn and special elections held,
Rev. William Barber, outgoing president of the NCNAACP, told reporters Tuesday
during a press conference in front of the Legislative Building. "Currently, we have an unconstitutionally
constituted, illegal body leading our state legislature, and it has become
evident that they are more entrenched than they ever were," Rev. Barber
said. "They’re not in office because they won the election. They’re in office,
according to the courts, because they cheated, and they used racial methods to
cheat. And then, with illegal power, they have passed bills that have hurt all
North Carolinians." GOP legislative leaders have refused to begin
redrawing maps until a federal court orders them to.
ORANGE COUNTY SCHOOL
BOARD VOTES TO BAN SYMBOLS OF RACIAL INTIMIDATION
[HILLSBOROUGH]
Outraged parents wanted a ban symbols of the Confederate flag in public schools
throughout the county, but the Orange County School Board Monday compromised in
its language, and voted to ban symbols “that are indecent, profane or racially
intimidating that create a reasonable forecast of disruption” in a revised
school dress code. Parents with the Hate-Free Schools Coalition, which
originally wanted the Confederate flag banned alone, said they were satisfied
with that outcome. Black students had complained that some white students would
wear the symbol of the old South on tee-shirts to racially intimidate them on
campus.
EDGECOMBE SCHOOL
ADMINISTRATORS APOLOGIZING FOR DENYING CLASS PRESIDENT HIS DIPLOMA BECAUSE HE
WOULDN’T READ THEIR SPEECH
[EDGECOMBE
COUNTY] Administrators at Southwest Edgecombe County High School have
apologized to a graduating student for refusing to give him his diploma at
graduation, just because he substituted a graduation speech he authored
himself, instead of reading one the school had written for him to read. Marvin
Wright, senior class president, says he and his family are angry with his
school for embarrassing him by not giving him his diploma at graduation
exercises, just because, at the last minute, he decided not to read the speech
he was given. Instead, he read one he worked hard to write, saluting his fellow
classmates for graduating. School administrators eventually apologized, and the
school’s principal hand-delivered Marvin’s diploma to his house Sunday. They
admit there was nothing wrong with the student’s speech.
-30-
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