All signs point to yes. There are currently four minority-majority House districts in Delaware, where minorities make up the majority of a district’s population, if not voter registration.
Under the Rethugs’ plan, there would be only two.
One of the minority-majority districts (3rd RD) disappears entirely, while a second (16th) goes from a minority-majority district to a white majority district.
Helene Keeley’s 3rd RD is perhaps the most racially- and ethnically-diverse district in Delaware. In addition to having a significant black population, the district includes the Latin American Community Center and the communities that the LACC primarily serves. Rather than eliminating Gerald Brady’s far less diverse district, the Rethugs have opted to do away with Keeley’s. In so doing, they have created a ‘new’ 3rd RD in western rural Kent County. And the white registration in this ‘new’ district replacing a minority-majority district? 81.31%. That’ll keep them ‘nigrahs’ and ‘furriners’ in line.
Paging Pompous Bloviator Greg Lavelle: Defend this, please. Explain how you hope to avoid a lawsuit and/or how this makes sense on legal or moral grounds.
Uh, don’t go away just yet, Greg.
You have also turned what heretofore was a minority-majority district south of Wilmington into a white majority district. The 16th RD, currently represented by J. J. Johnson, and excellent legislator and a minority, would have a white majority of 50.23%. In order to make this a white majority district, you really had to go out of your way to make those numbers work. And you did it by putting most everything east of New Castle Avenue into Stephanie Bolden’s district. Areas with an overwhelmingly minority population. And you’re putting them into a district that already has an overwhelming minority population while changing the key racial component of the 16th, totally unnecessarily.
I can go on here. But my point is that either Rethugs are so incompetent that they inadvertently did away with two minority-majority districts, or they did it deliberately, and replaced one of those districts with an overwhelmingly white rural district in Kent County. We both know which one it is. Greg, care to come on Al’s show with me next week and discuss your plan? Or do you just want to wait for a court challenge?
Oh, BTW, you read the quotes of heroic martyr Greg Lavelle saying that he’s supposedly making a sacrifice by facing a possible contest with Dennis E Williams? Betcha he didn’t tell you that the ‘new’ 10th goes from a district with a D plurality of about 2,000 registrants to one with an R plurality of about 600, now did he? Something tells me though that he won’t be able to fix the game this time around as he and Wayne Smith did last time.
Which means that minorities can at least breathe easier. And that Greg Lavelle is part of an endangered political minority.