Voters of coloration in Nassau County, N.Y., a segregated suburb of New York Metropolis, are waging an unprecedented redistricting struggle underneath a state voting rights act, an rising software for shielding voting rights on the native stage.
Tracy J. Lee for NPR
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Tracy J. Lee for NPR
Voters of coloration in Nassau County, N.Y., a segregated suburb of New York Metropolis, are waging an unprecedented redistricting struggle underneath a state voting rights act, an rising software for shielding voting rights on the native stage.
Tracy J. Lee for NPR
NASSAU COUNTY, N.Y. — In 2020, Maria Jordan-Awalom marched throughout an invisible line in one of the vital segregated areas of the nation.
After the police homicide of George Floyd, she and different demonstrators took to the streets for racial justice on this New York Metropolis suburb, simply east of the borough of Queens on Lengthy Island.
There have been no barricades blocking the highway into the subsequent neighborhood over, however crossing from the predominantly Latino and Black village of Freeport into the predominantly white hamlet of Merrick, their peaceable protest was met with jeers.
”Return to the place you got here from!” Jordan-Awalom remembers listening to from onlookers on the sidewalk.
”It hits totally different whenever you’re an immigrant, clearly,” says the president of Freeport’s faculty board, who was born in El Salvador and first moved to this village on Lengthy Island’s south shore as a young person. ”But additionally understanding that [they] had been simply indignant as a result of we had been Black and brown folks, that is what harm extra. We’re neighbors.”
Virtually 4 years later, neighbors from the 2 communities are sharing the identical consultant in county authorities. That is as a result of, in early 2023, officers within the Republican-controlled Nassau County Legislature authorised a redistricting plan that drew giant swaths of Freeport and Merrick into the identical voting district.
The brand new political map has left Jordan-Awalom questioning: ”What similarities do we’ve with the neighborhood who’s telling us, ’Return to the place you got here from’?”
The legislation agency that created the map with the county’s then-top Republican legislator pointed to the communities’ hearth departments offering emergency backup companies for one another, plus a shared rail line and an ”financial hall” working alongside the identical highway the place Jordan-Awalom marched.
Nonetheless, the map has perplexed many residents of coloration. In a county scarred by a long time of housing discrimination, they are saying its voting districts break up up their communities and ignore most of the strains that separate them from predominantly white areas.
A bunch of them, together with Jordan-Awalom, and a corporation referred to as New York Communities for Change at the moment are waging a authorized battle in opposition to the map with stakes that transcend the shores of Lengthy Island.
On Wednesday, they filed a novel lawsuit, arguing that the Nassau County Legislature deliberately handed a redistricting plan that discriminates in opposition to Black, Latino and Asian American voters to be able to give Republican candidates a bonus in elections. Their case couldn’t solely end in a unique set of voting districts for a county of near 1.4 million residents, but additionally create a pathway for voters of coloration elsewhere to guide a brand new type of struggle in opposition to racial discrimination in redistricting on the native stage.
Maria Jordan-Awalom, a resident of Freeport, N.Y., says she is preventing for a brand new redistricting plan for the Nassau County Legislature that retains her predominantly Latino and Black village united in a single voting district. ”I really feel like if we’re not represented as complete, the consultant will go to that highly effective white voice earlier than they hearken to our issues,” Jordan-Awalom says.
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Maria Jordan-Awalom, a resident of Freeport, N.Y., says she is preventing for a brand new redistricting plan for the Nassau County Legislature that retains her predominantly Latino and Black village united in a single voting district. ”I really feel like if we’re not represented as complete, the consultant will go to that highly effective white voice earlier than they hearken to our issues,” Jordan-Awalom says.
Hansi Lo Wang/NPR
In Nassau County, voters of coloration and white voters are likely to want totally different candidates. And the variety of folks figuring out as white and never Hispanic has dropped greater than 11% over the previous decade, as Black, Latino and Asian American residents now make up greater than a 3rd of eligible voters. However on the present map for the county legislature, these voters of coloration make up nearly all of eligible voters in solely 4 out of 19 districts, or lower than 1 / 4. The map’s challengers argue there needs to be six such districts.
”The white voice at all times appears to overpower our voices. And I really feel like if we’re not represented as complete, the consultant will go to that highly effective white voice earlier than they hearken to our issues,” says Jordan-Awalom, who needs to maintain her village united in a single voting district. ”We’ve got had the identical struggle for therefore lengthy, so clearly we’re not being heard. And I believe it has to alter.”
That change, she hopes, will come by an unprecedented method of instantly difficult an area voting map underneath a state voting rights act — an rising software that advocates hope will help fortify the rights of voters of coloration as opponents proceed to chip away at protections in opposition to racial discrimination underneath the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Authorized specialists, nevertheless, warn that critics of state voting rights acts are keen to check the constitutionality of those state legal guidelines with the U.S. Supreme Court docket’s conservative supermajority, and this New York case may spark an enchantment that will in the end result in the undoing of those protections throughout the USA.
How New York’s state voting rights act led to a brand new type of redistricting lawsuit
Within the decade for the reason that U.S. Supreme Court docket struck down a key provision of the federal Voting Rights Act, a small however rising variety of states — together with Washington, Oregon, Virginia, New York and Connecticut — have adopted the lead of the California Voting Rights Act of 2002 by setting up further authorized protections in opposition to racial discrimination in voting. New York’s John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act was signed into legislation in 2022.
The scope of every legislation is totally different, together with how they apply to particular elections. Whereas there have been many redistricting lawsuits underneath state voting rights acts over the previous twenty years, these circumstances have been challenges to elections during which a number of candidates are elected as at-large representatives of 1 voting district.
New York’s state voting rights act is amongst people who permit a map of a number of voting districts, every with a single consultant, to be challenged in courtroom for diluting the collective energy of voters of coloration. And the lawsuit in opposition to the Nassau County Legislature’s map is breaking new authorized floor in state courts, in response to Ruth Greenwood, an skilled on state voting rights acts, who directs Harvard Regulation Faculty’s Election Regulation Clinic.
”Loads of attorneys prefer to suppose that the U.S. Supreme Court docket is as fancy because it will get and you must attempt to do every part you’ll be able to there,” Greenwood says. ”However the actuality is that for those who’re making an attempt to guard communities, you want to use the best possible instruments obtainable to them. And on this case, the U.S. Supreme Court docket just isn’t a pal to the Voting Rights Act. And so it is sensible to undergo state voting rights acts.”
To argue {that a} voting map dilutes the collective energy of voters of coloration underneath the federal Voting Rights Act, challengers have to point out in courtroom that, within the phrases of a landmark Supreme Court docket ruling, ”the minority group” could make up nearly all of and match inside a ”majority-minority district” — a hurdle that may take a whole lot of time and redistricting specialists to beat. That is not the case with these state voting rights acts.
That distinction permits these state legal guidelines to deal with racial discrimination in locations the place residential segregation is probably not as excessive, says Perry Grossman, who helped develop New York’s state voting rights act and is now the lead lawyer for the Nassau County map’s challengers.
”It is taking much less taxpayer assets and fewer assets on the aspect of voters of coloration to root out that discrimination,” says Grossman, who additionally directs the New York Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Undertaking. ”It additionally presents extra alternatives for jurisdictions to remediate their schemes voluntarily, which we wish to see. We wish to see jurisdictions take that chance to do it themselves quite than get sued for it.”
The challengers of Nassau County’s map tried to keep away from a lawsuit by sending a proper letter in December to county officers, as required by New York’s state voting rights act. The letter claimed the present redistricting plan just isn’t consistent with the state legislation as a result of its boundaries impaired the power of communities of coloration to elect their candidates of alternative and affect election outcomes.
However the county legislature has refused to make any adjustments, maintaining in place a map that was launched late within the redistricting course of by the highest Republican legislator on the time, Richard Nicolello, who rejected plans put forth by a bipartisan redistricting advisory fee.
The legislature handed that map in February 2023 on a party-line vote with 11 Republicans in favor and 7 Democrats in opposition to it. The vote got here after contentious public hearings, the place Democratic county legislators had a tough time getting Nicolello and an lawyer from Troutman Pepper, the Atlanta-based legislation agency that put collectively Nicolello’s map, to elaborate on how they got here up with the districts.
No districts in Nassau County wanted to or may very well be ”race-focused districts” to be able to be consistent with the federal Voting Rights Act, concluded Sean Trende, an elections analyst for RealClearPolitics who suggested Nicolello, in response to a memo launched by Troutman Pepper.
”We, due to this fact, didn’t think about race any additional in redistricting as a result of that may have been unconstitutional,” lawyer Misha Tseytlin, a associate at Troutman Pepper who beforehand served as Wisconsin’s solicitor normal, defined at one listening to.
Tseytlin later added that the agency thought it is very important learn New York’s John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act ”per the U.S. Supreme Court docket’s precedent in opposition to racial gerrymandering.”
”Every other conclusion that may learn the John Lewis legislation as a requirement for infusing race into each redistricting determination, within the U.S. Supreme Court docket’s interpretation of phrases, would render the John Lewis legislation unconstitutional, and we positively do not wish to do this,” Tseytlin stated.
Tseytlin, Trende and the legislature’s Republican majority caucus, by a spokesperson, declined NPR’s interview requests. However in an e mail assertion, Mary Studdert, the caucus’ spokesperson, stated: ”The adopted maps included suggestions from the general public’s testimony from over a dozen public hearings, whereas assembly all authorized and constitutional requirements, uniting communities of curiosity and guaranteeing equal illustration for the residents of Nassau County.”
”…they put that lid proper again on prime of us”
Lisa Ortiz, an Afro-Latina resident of southern Nassau County, nevertheless, is anxious that illustration just isn’t equal now that her residence within the predominantly Black hamlet of Lakeview has been drawn into the identical district because the predominantly white village of Malverne.
The change pressured Lakeview out of a district with neighboring communities of coloration, and Ortiz, a registered Democrat who was beforehand represented by a Black Democrat, now has a county legislator who’s a white Republican.
”When you consider Lakeview being grouped right into a district that actually has the facility to silence our vote, it discourages folks. Why ought to I am going out and vote? My vote just isn’t even going to depend. That defeats the aim of dwelling in a democracy,” says Ortiz, who is likely one of the redistricting plan’s challengers within the lawsuit.
Lisa Ortiz, a resident of Lakeview, N.Y., stands underneath the brand new road signal for Acorn Manner within the predominantly white village of Malverne, the place many Black college students from Lakeview attend faculties. The road was beforehand named Lindner Place after a frontrunner of the Ku Klux Klan in New York.
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Lisa Ortiz, a resident of Lakeview, N.Y., stands underneath the brand new road signal for Acorn Manner within the predominantly white village of Malverne, the place many Black college students from Lakeview attend faculties. The road was beforehand named Lindner Place after a frontrunner of the Ku Klux Klan in New York.
Hansi Lo Wang/NPR
Troutman Pepper, the legislation agency that drew the county legislature’s map, justified the change by citing the ”sturdy neighborhood of curiosity” created by the 2 communities sharing the identical faculty district.
However many Lakeview residents bear in mind the wrestle to get the district to fund faculty bussing for Black college students in Lakeview after the district was ordered to desegregate. And till final 12 months, the road in entrance of one of many district’s elementary faculties in Malverne was named after a chief of the Ku Klux Klan in New York, Paul Lindner, who was as soon as additionally the namesake of the varsity.
Ortiz was relieved to see Lindner Place turn out to be Acorn Manner on the unveiling of the brand new road signal final January, weeks earlier than the Nassau County Legislature handed the brand new voting map.
”We had been capable of accomplish one factor with the road renaming, however then they put that lid proper again on prime of us,” Ortiz says.
Why this redistricting struggle may find yourself earlier than the U.S. Supreme Court docket
In direction of the northwest nook of Nassau County, Jerry Vattamala, an Indian American resident of the village of New Hyde Park, sees an identical tactic enjoying out by the present redistricting plan. The county’s Asian American inhabitants has grown over the previous decade by round 60%, the very best charge amongst all racial and ethnic teams.
The map’s strains minimize by a rising Asian American neighborhood in an space generally known as Better New Hyde Park, the place thoroughfares are lined with gurdwaras, Hindu temples, bubble tea outlets and Asian-owned grocery shops, plus annual occasions for Diwali and Lunar New 12 months are organized by city authorities officers.
”Anybody that lives within the space simply by it could actually see, ’Oh, look! They divided us into three totally different districts’ — proper within the coronary heart of the place most people stay,” says Vattamala, who’s a member of New York Communities for Change, one of many map’s challengers.
Due to the place Asian American residents stay within the county, it might be troublesome to attract a viable voting district the place Asian People make up the bulk.
However Vattamala hopes to see a brand new map with what’s recognized within the redistricting world as an ”affect district,” the place there could be sufficient Asian American voters to have a major affect on who’s elected to the Nassau County Legislature, which has but to have an elected legislator of Asian descent. Underneath the present map, two Democratic candidates who may have been the county’s first Asian American legislators misplaced to Republicans final 12 months in races for seats in Better New Hyde Park.
”We’re not asking for particular therapy or to have any kind of benefit,” says Vattamala, an lawyer who leads the Asian American Authorized Protection and Schooling Fund’s Democracy Program. ”What we’re demanding is an equal alternative to elect a candidate of our alternative, similar to different communities get pleasure from, primarily the white neighborhood in Nassau County.”
Jerry Vattamala attended a Lunar New 12 months occasion organized by officers from the city of North Hempstead, N.Y., in January. Vattamala says he hopes to see a brand new voting district with sufficient Asian American voters to have a major affect on who’s elected to the Nassau County Legislature, which has but to have an elected legislator of Asian descent.
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Hansi Lo Wang/NPR
Jerry Vattamala attended a Lunar New 12 months occasion organized by officers from the city of North Hempstead, N.Y., in January. Vattamala says he hopes to see a brand new voting district with sufficient Asian American voters to have a major affect on who’s elected to the Nassau County Legislature, which has but to have an elected legislator of Asian descent.
Hansi Lo Wang/NPR
Nonetheless, Greenwood of Harvard’s Election Regulation Clinic warns that critics of state voting rights could also be getting ready to problem that place in courtroom by arguing that what legal guidelines equivalent to New York’s require in redistricting quantities to racial gerrymandering.
”I believe some folks see that whenever you’re making an attempt to enfranchise folks of coloration, they see that as creating possibly a quota or some set-aside so that folks of coloration have entry to the political system,” Greenwood says.
Greenwood has helped file friend-of-the-court briefs arguing in opposition to a Republican precinct committee officer in Washington’s Franklin County who has requested the U.S. Supreme Court docket to take up a case concerning the constitutionality of Washington’s state voting rights act.
The case in opposition to the Nassau County Legislature’s map could also be headed for the excessive courtroom, too.
”If this results in the New York voting rights act getting struck down as unconstitutional, that will not solely have an effect on folks in Nassau County,” Greenwood says. ”It will have an effect on all people in New York and doubtlessly all people in the entire states which have state voting rights acts.”
It is a potential state of affairs that Tseytlin, the Troutman Pepper lawyer, hinted at a number of instances final 12 months throughout a public listening to concerning the county’s map.
”This was simply enacted,” Tseytlin stated concerning the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of New York. ”That is the primary cycle. Maybe, there will probably be a take a look at case right here developing.”
Edited by Benjamin Swasey
Visuals edited by Grace Widyatmadja
Analysis by Jane Gilvin, Nicolette Khan and Barclay Walsh