“BOLLOCKS!” Stacey Abrams SLAMS GOP redistricting efforts

Since the Supreme Court weakened key protections in the Voting Rights Act, Republicans, especially in the Deep South, have rushed to launch partisan gerrymandering campaigns designed to strengthen their margins ahead of an otherwise grim midterm election cycle. While Georgia's term-limited GOP governor Brian Kemp rejected a redrawal ahead of this November, he's pushing state lawmakers to overhaul Georgia's congressional and legislative maps for 2028, ensuring Georgia joins other Southern states on track to erase court-ordered majority Black districts before the next presidential election. Note these new maps will not affect this year's midterm elections in Georgia, with state primaries already underway. Joining us now is Stacey Abrams, founder of the Fair Fight Action organization and host of the Assembly Required podcast. So Stacey, let's hear your take on how this will impact Black voters in your state and I want to in particular get you to respond to there is a new New York Times analysis of comparing the 2024 map of these Southern states to a neutral colorblind map and their simulation showed in 2024 Democrats won 24 states in the South with that map and then with a colorblind and party blind map the Times concluded Democrats would still probably win 23 seats with the Voting Rights Act without the VRA. So do you agree with this Times analysis or what do you forecast for the state of Georgia and the broader South? First Alisa, I appreciate the question. I want to start with the use of the term colorblind. There are no colorblind maps in the South. Race is the strongest predictor of political leanings and so the facial notion that we're not looking at race when we're talking about partisanship is just disingenuous and wrong and I know that's not what you intended but that's the way they use that language. The responsibility is for communities of interest to have the ability to elect leadership that reflect their needs. It doesn't guarantee them success but it guarantees them a voice and any maps that are drawn that diminish Black voter participation, Brown voter participation, that inherently diminishes the ability of these communities to have a voice in our democracy and that is by itself a dangerous thing. That said, we have to look not only at the congressional maps, we also have to look at state legislative maps and that's really the analysis that is the most important in this dynamic because those state legislative maps that get drawn post-2030 census can lock in political power based on race for another decade and that is basically a generational change and so while it may be true that the density of communities of color in the South may not be directly impacted across the board, we have to recognize one, those communities will lose their voice and two, the new maps drawn by newly elected state legislators will not reflect the needs, values, or ambitions of those communities and that's dangerous for America. Speaker Mike Johnson was asked about all of this on Fox News earlier. I want you to take a listen. What is your message to Black Americans, Black voters about this redistricting? The Supreme Court issued a long-awaited opinion and I think it was long overdue and they stated the obvious that drawing congressional lines must be fair. You cannot draw lines on the basis of race and that's what was done in Louisiana so they declared it to be an unconstitutional gerrymander and it was. This brings back fairness and certainty to the system. What do you think he means, Stacey, when he says it brings back fairness and certainty to the system? He's saying it brings back 1964, 1963, 1892 when race neutral maps said that because Blacks, largely Black, although we have to now include communities of color beyond the African-American population, race neutrality has never been neutral. The race neutral laws that were in place prior to the Voting Rights Act said that you could have poll taxes and literacy tests and maps that diminished participation but they were race neutral. They were just designed based on what races did. We knew that Blacks were not permitted to learn how to read prior to the end of the Civil War. It was prohibited. So if you had a literacy test, you disproportionately affected Black communities. We know that poverty was more prevalent among communities of color and so when you had poll taxes, it was Black families that couldn't afford to vote. And then just in case we missed it, you had the Grandfather Clause. It said all of these rules are race neutral, but if your grandfather could vote before the Civil War, they don't apply to you. Mike Johnson is from the South. He's from Louisiana. He absolutely knows that this is bollocks, that this is hogwash. They are very clear that race and partisanship sit side by side in the South. Sixty percent of Black people in America live in the South. It is an impossibility to draw these lines without drawing race into the conversation. But we also know this is true because these are states that used at-large voting intentionally to diminish Black participation. They said fine, you live near each other like everyone else. We're going to make sure that you can't ever band together to have enough people to overwhelm the numbers. That's the race neutrality we had before 1965. That's the remarkably racist behavior that was vitiated by the Voting Rights Act, by Section 2, and now it is back. And so what he is celebrating is the return of Jim Crow to the South, and that is a terrible thing for America. Stacey, could you talk a little bit about how this ruling will affect Black representation, not only at the federal level, but at the state level? I'm thinking state lawmakers, county commissions, city councils. To what extent will this ruling affect representation and the representation particularly of voters of color at the levels below the federal level? Absolutely. And that's why I think this is such an important conversation to have at this moment. In a competitive authoritarian nation, which is what America is now, democracy is about ensuring that we have shared power and shared voices. It does not guarantee you victory, but it guarantees you access. Authoritarianism, especially competitive authoritarianism, attempts to diminish your ability to use those same democratic institutions to your benefit. With these new maps, we know that analysis by Fair Fight and Black Voters Matter show that we could lose 19 to 20 congressional seats, but we could lose up to 191 state legislative seats. And in the South, those state legislators draw city council districts, county commission districts, school board districts, and they draw state legislative lines. And so if you want to know your child is going to have fair and equitable access to education, that will be diminished if your families can't participate in elections and elect leaders who value your education. If you want health care in the South, it's the state legislature that decides whether you have access. All of the things that disproportionately harm communities of color will now be decided by people who disproportionately dislike and vote against the needs of people of color. But what we have to remember, and this is why I started the 10 Steps campaign, this is a national fight. It may start in the South, but it has national implications. Progress that serves the most disproportionately harmed communities lifts everyone. But if we do not do so, if we allow the suppression of black and brown votes, we are harming their neighbors and we're harming the U.S. And that's why we cannot allow the South to be left behind. We need national intervention because they are starting in the South. This is a national attempt to misuse democratic institutions to suppress all of the communities who fight for democracy in this country. Stacey, you've given us a very grim diagnosis of the situation and what's at stake. Let's try to end on a positive note, perhaps, and tell us what's the way forward. How do we fight this? What is the national intervention that you're talking about look like? What can people across your state, the South, the nation do to prevent this hostile takeover? Thank you. Look, I always start with the diagnosis because we've got to know what we face. The first steps and the 10 Steps to Freedom and Power is committing to know what we need to know. But we know we can fight this at the ballot box, we can fight this in the courthouse, and we can fight this in communities. Let's remember, Jim Crow was ended because communities came together. Black, brown, and white communities came together and fought back. But what that means is that we have to right-size the maps. We have to fix what they are breaking. This is not about competition for red versus blue. This is democracy versus authoritarianism. And so we need more states like Maryland, like Illinois, like New York to have racially fair community representative maps that actually nullify the attempts that are being made by the authoritarians who are trying to strip us of power. We have to fund the litigation that's going forward. And we have to vote. We have to vote. We have to vote, not just in 26, but 28, 30, and 32, because we can win. We have won before, and we can do it again. Stacey Abrams, thanks so much for your time tonight. Thank you.