For the first time since the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Southern state lawmakers can once again redesign election districts without federal oversight.
That means several GOP-dominated legislatures can shape state and congressional voting maps without first seeking approval from the U.S. Department of Justice or the U.S. District Court of Washington, D.C. Without the constraints of oversight, seven Southern states are alleged to have established racially discriminatory election maps: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas, according to the Brennan Center, a public policy institute of New York University Law School.
Each of these states devised maps that raise concerns over the fair representation of Black communities in the legislatures and Congress. The districts were conceived under a system of discriminatory mapping known as gerrymandering.
