Listen: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/americandemocracyminute/episodes/2022-06-02T07_47_39-07_00
Today’s Links:
Articles:
PA – Pittsburgh Post Gazette – U.S. Supreme Court ruling on mail-in ballots could affect Pa.’s GOP Senate race between David McCormick and Mehmet Oz
NH – New Hampshire Bulletin – Court approves new congressional map
TX – Texas Signal – “THE CONTINUING LEGAL FIGHT OVER TEXAS REDISTRICTING”, Scotus Blog
Groups working on these democracy issues:
PA – ACLU Pennsylvania
NH – Open Democracy Action, League of Women Voters NH
TX – League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)
You’re listening to the American Democracy Minute, keeping YOUR government by and for the people.
Some end of the week updates for you today from Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Texas.
The undated mail ballot case in Pennsylvania has taken another turn. A federal appeals court had allowed ballots which were on time and properly signed, but had no date, to be counted for a county election. With the tight U.S. Senate race between Dr. Oz and David McCormick, Oz and the national GOP pushed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. June 1, the court issued an “administrative stay” prior to a full ruling, meaning that those ballots can’t be counted – yet. Stay tuned on this story, because it could have a national impact on absentee and mail voting.
We finally have a new Congressional map in New Hampshire, after the NH Supreme Court approved the maps submitted by a special master on Tuesday, May 31. This is a win for advocates, who pressured Governor Chris Sununu to keep his word and veto the extremely gerrymandered Congressional map proposals from his party. The court’s new, competitive map is a “least changed” map moving only 5 towns between districts, in keeping with 140 years of precedent.
Finally to Texas, where the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state legislators must testify about their intentions when gerrymandering districts to dilute the power of black & brown communities, which the U.S. Justice Department says violated the Voting Rights Act.
There’s more information on these stories and more at AmericanDemocracy Minute.org.
Granny D said, “Democracy is not something we have, it’s something we DO.”
For the American Democracy Minute, I’m Brian Beihl.
