“We’re potentially telling thousands of citizens that their votes don’t matter and might not be counted,” said our Senior Counsel Ami Gandhi.
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What failed to happen in D.C. could still happen closer to home.
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“The Voting Rights Act protects Black voters’ right to an equal opportunity to elect candidates of choice. This ruling undermines that right,” said Ami Gandhi, senior counsel at Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights.
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Last week, our attorneys went to federal court to challenge Illinois lawmakers who unlawfully cracked apart the Black community of the East St. Louis area during redistricting.
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Last week, the East St. Louis Branch NAACP, the Illinois State Conference of the NAACP, and United Congress of Community and Religious Organizations (UCCRO) submitted our proposed revisions to a federal judge - fixes that would cure the legal violations and keep the geographically compact and politically cohesive Black community of the East St. Louis area together.
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Some lawmakers and election officials have mistakenly argued that the Illinois constitution does not allow for voting in prison. To assess the constitutionality of Senate Bill 828, we worked with the law firm of Dechert LLP to produce a legal memo laying out our legal findings.
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The Illinois legislature’s S.B. 927 redistricting plan, creates unconstitutional racially gerrymandered districts for the Illinois House of Representatives, according to a federal lawsuit filed Friday by Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and pro-bono counsel Cooley LLP. The challenged redistricting plan breaks up the geographically compact and politically cohesive Black community of East St. Louis.
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Our preliminary analysis suggests that there are multiple examples where communities of color have been “cracked,” breaking our communities apart into multiple House or Senate districts. The Indiana legislature must redraw such districts to keep communities of color together, or they risk violating the federal Voting Rights Act.
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Chicago’s redistricting process is just beginning now, and Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights has created a handout with basic information about the process in collaboration with the Illinois Muslim Civic Coalition and the South Asian American Policy and Research Institute (SAAPRI).
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“Communities of color have said loud and clear throughout these hearings that we are uncomfortable with this year’s redistricting process, and we do not feel reassured that our rights are being respected,” said Senior Counsel Ami Gandhi.
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Leaders in Indiana should be improving voting conditions instead of perpetuating the status quo.
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“While AVR was intended to expand Illinois’ voting rolls in a fair, accurate, and secure way, the law’s implementation fell short of that,” said Senior Counsel Ami Gandhi of Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, which is representing the advocacy groups.
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“We know that Illinois is capable of doing better to protect voting rights of people of color. And Illinois should do better.”
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