October 7, 2020

In a few weeks, the Supreme Court of the United States will hear arguments to decide the fate of the “Citizenship Question” in the 2020 Census.  LatinoJustice and Locke and Lord, LLP, along with some of the nation’s most prominent Latino, and other community nonprofit organizations, filed an Amicus, also known as a “friend of the court” brief. This brief details why the Supreme Court should affirm the district court’s ruling that the citizenship question is unconstitutional and that the subsequent undercount result in a loss of federal funding to several states and a severe reduction in political power, resources and participation in the Latino community. 

Trenton is all aflutter over its independent redistricting commission. Who gets to sit, who decides on the tie-breaking appointment, and how do recent statewide vote tallies shape the districts the commission can devise, especially since the Democrats are on a roll in the State, are all in the mix of two legislative proposals placed on the fast track (SCR 43 and ACR 60). From a New Jersey Latinx perspective all of this distracts from the real impediments to more political power in Trenton:  the insistence in New Jersey on jealously guarding the sanctity of 40 legislative districts electing one senator and two assembly members.They are called multi-member districts and they are disfavored under the Voting Rights Act.