ABCnews carrying an AP item yesterday:
Democrats got a potential boost for the 2024 congressional elections as courts in Alabama and Florida ruled recently that Republican-led legislatures had unfairly diluted the voting power of Black residents.
But those cases are just two of about a dozen that could carry big consequences as Republicans campaign to hold onto their slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Another trial alleging racial violations in voting districts got underway Tuesday in Georgia, where Democrats also hope to make gains, while voting rights advocates in Ohio decided to drop a legal challenge to that state's congressional districts — providing a bit of good news for Republicans.
Legal challenges to congressional districts also are ongoing in Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah. And new districts seem likely in New York and North Carolina, based on previous court actions.
Though much remains to be settled, there's a good chance congressional districts will be changing in numerous states.
[...] Republicans currently hold a 222-212 majority in the U.S. House, with one vacancy in a previously Democratic-held seat.
[... ] A Florida redistricting case decided Saturday by a state judge also involved race, though it relied on provisions in the state constitution instead of the Voting Rights Act. That judge said the U.S. House map enacted by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis diminished Black voters’ ability to elect their candidate of choice in northern Florida. The judge directed Florida lawmakers to draw a new congressional map — a ruling that is likely to be appealed before it's carried out.
[...] Though lawsuits have become common after each decennial redistricting, they can lead to confusion among voters if congressional districts get changed after only a few years.
“It does undermine a little bit the theory of representative democracy if you don’t even know who represents you election to election," Spencer said. "It’s another reason why these redistricting games are so problematic.”
In excerpting, much detail about states in flux was omitted. Readers are urged to access the original item. The paragraph about Florida/DeSantis is relevant nationwide with DeSantis now a presidential candidate. The two concluding paragraphs deserve emphasis. Part of democracy in practice, at levels above individual voters, is manipulation of districts to lessen the power of one person, one vote - both parties in our two party system being guilty of gerrymandering, or litigating to undo what the other party did, while in the majority. Every ten years the deed is done, with inevitable litigation aimed toward partisan change ensuing.
How the two party system manages US is not an honorable story. Truth sometimes is that way. The system survives, and how to make it better is uncertain, and debated in partisan ways. Elections are held, we vote, and there is The Electoral College as yet another impediment citizens face, in how those running the nation run it. "Trump alternate electors" was a low point, no honor in it, none whatsoever.
We find out between now and Nov. 2024 whether beyond dishonorable, juries deem it criminal. The jury system gets its workout in a way ultimately healthy for democracy as we know and practice it. Yea, juries!
_____________UPDATE____________
Continuing the thoughts - AP reports Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was sentenced Tuesday to 22 years in prison, the longest sentence so far arising from Jan. 6, i.e., longer than Oath Keeper Stewart Rhodes drew. The ending paragraph of the item;
Tarrio’s lawyers denied the Proud Boys had any plan to attack the Capitol or stop the certification of Biden’s victory. They argued that prosecutors used Tarrio as a scapegoat for Trump, who spoke at the “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House on Jan. 6 and urged his supporters to “fight like hell.”
Of interest, mid-item in the Tarrio report, AP included a featured link over to a Kamala Harris exclusive AP video interview headlined,
The AP Interview: Harris says Trump shouldn’t be an exception for Jan. 6 accountability
First four paragraphs of commentary supplementing the video:
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris said Wednesday that those responsible for the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and the ensuing violence at the U.S Capitol must be held accountable — even if that means Donald Trump.
“Let the evidence, the facts, take it where it may,” Harris said in an interview with The Associated Press in Jakarta, Indonesia, where she was attending a regional summit.
Federal prosecutors have indicted Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, for his efforts to cling to power in 2020. The former president also has been charged in Georgia in a scheme to subvert the will of voters who elected Democrat Joe Biden instead of giving Trump a second term.
“I spent the majority of my career as a prosecutor,” said Harris, who served as California’s attorney general before moving to Washington as a U.S. senator. “I believe that people should be held accountable under the law. And when they break the law, there should be accountability.”
There's more for readers who follow the link.
Only a true idiot would have expected her to say anything different than that Jan 6 was Trump's responsibility. There is a lot of reasoning going that way.
Juries will decided every count of the indictments against Trump. Yea juries!
Closing the post with that update. While noting that AP had multiple ways it might have structured its today's-presentation-of-news, and that online editorial decision making often adds intended structure to objective presentations. Which is something always worth attention and reflection when online.