Today the Southern Coalition for Social Justice is standing with the LGBTQ community and fair minded North Carolinians in asking all North Carolina voters to stand up to hate by voting AGAINST Amendment One.
Amendment One, which seeks to define marriage as a union between one woman and one man would:
• take domestic partnership benefits from all unmarried people
• take health benefits from kids of all unmarried people, and
• restrict the rights of domestic violence survivors who are being hurt by people they are not married to
This amendment would have broad impacts on many North Carolinians, but it explicitly seeks to attack LGBTQ community members. In North Carolina, same sex marriage is not legal, thus at its core this amendment seeks to further alienate LGBTQ people from our communities.
As a social justice organization, we stand for the equal rights and humanity of all persons. Please, go to the polls today to vote NO on Amendment One and make sure your friends and family know why you are against this amendment.
We thank everyone who has been involved in this important human rights struggle.
For more information about Amendment One see:
http://www.protectallncfamilies.org/home
http://southernersonnewground.org/
http://www.naacpnc.org/
On Monday, the United States Department of Justice objected to a proposed reduction in the size and method of election of the Pitt County Board of Education. The changes were the result of a local bill passed by the General Assembly last year. On behalf of the North Carolina State Conference of NAACP Branches, SCSJ filed a comment letter with DOJ, explaining how the proposed change would be retrogressive for black voters in the county. DOJ agreed that the change would make black voters worse off, and issued an objection letter on April 30.
Attached are the comment letter filed by SCSJ and the DOJ Objection Letter.
Yesterday, a 3-judge panel on the North Carolina Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed a trial court decision in Waste Industries v. NC upholding the constitutionality of a state law that limits the size and location of new large landfills built in the state. The Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association and the NC NAACP had intervened in the litigation to defend the law, passed in 2007, because large landfills are often sited in low-income, minority communities. The NAACP had pushed the General Assembly to consider environmental justice when dealing with new landfills. The decision from the Court of Appeals expressly recognized the environmental justice protections provided by the challenged statutes.
Attached is the May 1 opinion from the Court of Appeals.
Last Friday SCSJ staff attorney, Allison Riggs, represented the Florida NAACP in asking the Supreme Court to declare the new Senate redistricting plan constitutionally invalid. She argued that in invalidating the first Senate plan earlier this year, the Florida Supreme Court had not factored in the effects of racially polarized voting in determining whether a district with a dramatically reduced black voting age population, will still allow black voters to elect the candidates of their choice. The redrawn Senate plan would have significant negative effects on minority voters in Northeast Florida. The position of the NAACP is that the evidence before the Court indicated that there still is, especially in northeast Florida, a substantial amount of racially polarized voting, and that black voters cannot rely on white crossover voters. She showed how redrawn Senate districts in which the BVAP has been dramatically lowered, those districts violate the state constitutional prohibition on diminishing the ability of minority voters to elect the candidates of their choice.
It is expected that a decision will be made by next Friday.
To read some of the press coverage see:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/18/2760870/supreme-court-suggests-it-...
http://jacksonville.com/news/florida/2012-04-20/story/first-coasts-black...
Last week community members in Greene County, Georgia succeeded in convincing the Department of Justice to issue an objection to the County’s proposed redistricting plans. Using its authority under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the Department prevented the implementation of new election districts that would have prevented black voters in the county from being able to elect candidates of their choice. In the objection letter dated April 13th, 2012, the Assistant Attorney General writes, “The elimination of both ability-to-elect districts was unnecessary and avoidable. Although there has been a decrease in the black share of the county’s population over the past ten years, the ability to draw at least one black ability-to-elect district still existed.”
This victory was a result of the efforts of the local NAACP chapter, and African American leaders who paid close attention to the redistricting process, and then organized to ensure their voices were heard. SCSJ board member, Jerry Wilson, who lives in Greene County, helped to ensure that the local group got the assistance they needed. . He says that SCSJ played an important support role. Community members attended meetings, engaged county commissioners and school board members opposed to the proposed changes, drew alternative maps demonstrating it was possible to maintain an ability-to elect district for Black voters, and wrote letters talking about how they would be affected by the changes.
The objection is significant for Black Belt counties like this one in Georgia. Over 60% of the county formerly was African American, before an influx of white retirees, people moving out of Atlanta, and investors began to settle in the area and developed major resorts around Lake Oconee. According the 2010 census, the county is now only 38.4% African American. Without this action by the Department of Justice, black voters in the county would have lost their voice in local government.
SCSJ staff attorney, Allison Riggs is taking the lead representing the Florida NAACP in a heated redistricting battle over senate districts 9 (Duval County) and 31 (Broward County). Earlier this year the state Supreme Court invalidated the first redrawn senate plan and the senate was forced to try again. Now that the new plans have been proposed, Riggs and her co-counsel are arguing that the plans diminish the ability of African Americans in those districts to elect candidates of their choice and are in violation to the state’s constitutional amendment to protect minority voting rights. Riggs says, “Our issue is that we are arguing that they really haven’t looked at racially polarized voting. They have looked at some election data but it is not sufficient. We are going to argue in front of the Florida Supreme Court that no one is taking into proper account what is necessary for black voters or any voters of color.”
SCSJ Ensures Equal Representation on Guilford County Board of Commissioners
On February 7, 2012, SCSJ filed suit on behalf of the NAACP-Greensboro Branch and individual Guilford County voters to ensure equal representation on their county Board of Commissioners. SCSJ’s Complaint alleged the General Assembly’s Guilford County redistricting plan left thousands of residents without a county commissioners, while others received disproportionately large representation. United States Middle District of North Carolina Judge William L. Osteen granted Plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction finding the legislation in question caused “unequal representation on the Board of Commissioners… violating… residents’ equal protection rights” in his March 14, 2012 Judge Osteen changed the election schedule to ensure equal representation on the Board, and SCSJ continues to work to rectify further anomalies found in the redistricting plan.
Memorandum Opinion is attached.
SCSJ conducted its sixth wills’ clinic in Tarboro, North Carolina, on February 18-19. These wills’ clinics are part of SCSJ’s efforts to prevent heirs’ property passing without a will, a leading cause of family land loss in the South. During the most recent clinic, 20 Edgecombe County residents had 74 end of life documents made free of charge. This was the most individuals ever participating in an SCSJ wills’ clinic as well as the most documents produced. Coordinating partner and Edgecombe County Extension Service Community Rural Development Agent Jamilla Hawkins says, “This clinic is invaluable to our county. I am delighted to see so many people take advantage of this service.” Many thanks to everyone who made the service possible: SCSJ staff attorney Chris Brook, the office of the Edgecombe County Agricultural Extension, and the nine law student volunteers from Carolina and Campbell Law who interviewed clients and assisted with end of life document drafting.
Staff attorney Chris Brook spoke at Carolina Law on February 21, detailing SCSJ and the Carrboro community’s successful 2011 effort to repeal the town’s unconstitutional anti-loitering law and how it represented the capacity of the North Carolina immigrant community to overcome the challenges it faces. The panel discussion, entitled “The Street Corner Next Door,” was sponsored by the Immigration Law Association and the National Lawyers Guild and also featured representatives from the North Carolina DREAM Team, the UNC Center for Civil Rights, the North Carolina Immigrants Rights Project, and the ACLU of North Carolina. Brook highlighted how the ordinance applied only to the Carrboro street corner frequented by predominantly Latino day laborer, making it more difficult for them to find employment as well as infringing upon their First Amendment rights. The panelist agreed immigrants faced an inhospitable climate through the nation as well as within North Carolina currently, but held out the Carrboro example, among others, as demonstrating the power of community-drive efforts.
On February 6, the three judge panel ruled that the statewide redistricting lawsuits in North Carolina will go forward. The judges’ denied in part the State’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit SCSJ filed on behalf of the North Carolina NAACP, Democracy NC, the League of Women Voters, NC A. Philip Randolph Institute and 44 individual voters. The judges also refused to dismiss the redistricting lawsuit brought by Democratic officials and voters. Although the judges’ dismissed some of the plaintiffs’ claims, the case will proceed on the majority of the claims including claims that State House, State Senate and Congressional plans draw racially gerrymandered districts, divide too many counties and split an excessive number of precincts. The judges’ ruling allows claims to go forward against every district challenged by the plaintiffs including Congressional Districts 1, 4, 10 and 12. As the lawsuits move through the courts, SCSJ and the plaintiff organizations are working to minimize voter confusion and problems that may arise during the May primaries.
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