On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Arena,” Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL) said Democrats have to win the battle on redistricting “because it’s about making sure that the Republicans don’t steal the next election. And that’s exactly what they’re doing.”
Sewell said, “I personally think that we, as Democrats, can’t sit back. We have to fight back. So, if blue states — I mean, red states are going to redraw their maps, I think that Democrats need to think about redrawing their maps. I know it’s a race to the bottom, but it’s a — it’s to the bottom, and you’re fighting fire with fire. And I think it’s important that we win this fight, because it’s about making sure that the Republicans don’t steal the next election. And that’s exactly what they’re doing.”
Host Kasie Hunt then asked, “Steal the next election, could you point to how you believe that’s happening?”
Sewell answered, “Well, I think that the redistricting that’s going on in Florida is — this was all started by Donald Trump, by asking Texas to find him five seats. And what you’ve seen is a tit for tat. And I know I personally voted against gerrymandering, not once, but twice, when Democrats were in charge. We voted for the Freedom to Vote Act. But the fact of the matter is, Republicans did not vote for that. They wanted gerrymandering. And what the Supreme Court has allowed them to do is to have partisan gerrymandering, and they can actually draw discriminatory maps and use it as an excuse that they did it for partisan reasons. It’s pretty scary times to live in that we don’t actually protect the rights of protected classes on race, but we allow partisan gerrymandering, and that’s kind of where we are. And I think that the fact that they can not only redraw seats, but now that they can redraw lines, even before elections, is pretty devastating.”
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