The federal government is no longer the voting rights watch dog it used to be. And it’s not hard to see things getting even worse as the U.S. Supreme Court becomes more conservative and hostile to race-based protections. Vital federal laws that African Americans and other communities of color in Missouri have long relied upon to ensure fair representation and a seat at the table may be further undermined, if not completely eliminated.
The good news is Missouri has a blueprint for a powerful state alternative. Amendment 1, a grass-roots initiative pushed by Clean Missouri, would require legislative districts to be drawn in a way that allow communities of color to elect preferred candidates. If the proposal survives a pending legal challenge by conservatives, voters could pass Amendment 1 this November and make Missouri a leader in guaranteeing voting rights to communities that have, with increasing frequency, been carved out of the political calculus.
Such protections are critical given recent trends. In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court gutted key provisions of the Voting Rights Act that had protected communities of color from discrimination in the political process. Since then, states have taken the Supreme Court’s decision as a signal that they can operate unchecked. A worrying new report by the United States Commission on Civil Rights found that restrictive voting laws that intentionally target or disproportionately impact communities of color are sharply on the rise.
And if that weren’t bad enough, the U.S. Justice Department has done its best to smooth the path for states targeting minority voters. Under U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, federal enforcement of voting laws on behalf of communities of color has all but ground to a halt. Restrictive voter ID laws, voter roll purges, and poll site closures have spread rapidly. Those looking to limit the political power of African Americans and other communities are only growing bolder.
There’s good reason to expect an increase in race-based gerrymandering – the manipulation of district boundaries designed to weaken the political strength of black and brown communities. Redistricting forms the foundation of which communities get representation at all levels of government. It has been used to break communities of color apart so they don’t have the strength to elect their preferred candidates. Or, conversely, to limit the number of seats that minority voters can influence by drawing a few districts to be packed with people of color, instead of distributing such voters across more districts.
Amendment 1 would make such discriminatory actions illegal under state law. The proposal makes fair treatment of communities of color the first and most important consideration in drawing district boundaries. The amendment would, in fact, go beyond current federal law to protect not only so-called “majority minority” districts but also districts where African Americans can combine with other voters, whether white or some other community, to win political representation. All other considerations, such as partisan fairness and competitiveness, would be strictly secondary. Few states currently have protections for minority voters as strong as those that Amendment 1 would offer.
In addition to protecting communities of color from race-based gerrymandering, Amendment 1 would also tackle many of the other pressing issues plaguing our democracy, limiting the influence of lobbyists and big donors.
Missourians who signed petitions by the thousands to put Amendment 1 on the ballot must persist. In this era, federal protections are far from guaranteed. Missouri must step up and take matters into its own hands.
Yurij Rudensky is counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law.
