Rulings On Gerrymandering And The Census Could Define The Political Future

NPR: Rulings On Gerrymandering And The Census Could Define The Political Future (transcript)

Mother Jones journalist Ari Berman says recent Supreme Court decisions on redistricting and the 2020 census citizenship question will help determine which party is in power in the next decade.



Also see: Republican Voter Suppression Efforts Are Targeting Minorities, Journalist Says (transcript)

"Since the 2010 elections, 24 states have implemented new restrictions on voting. Alabama now requires a photo ID to cast a ballot. Other states such as Ohio and Georgia have enacted "use it or lose it" laws, which strike voters from registration rolls if they have not participated in an election within a prescribed period of time. Mother Jones journalist Ari Berman, author of Give Us the Ballot, says that many of the restrictions are part of a broader Republican strategy to tighten access to the ballot — an effort that was bolstered in 2013 by the Supreme Court's Shelby County v. Holder ruling. "[That] decision," Berman explains, "said that those states with the longest histories of discrimination no longer had to approve their voting changes with the federal government."