After years of African American struggle against Jim Crow, “black codes,” voter suppression, poll taxes, the KKK and white supremacy, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
In the past two years the Biden-Harris democratic run house has created over 10 million jobs, and brought unemployment down to an all-time low, invested in manufacturing jobs and mental health resources and lowered energy prices, and canceled up to $20,000 in federal loans for millions of students. These are just some of the things that have been done with people who care about people and not just politics. Can you imagine what could get done for all Americans if everybody was on the same page, or if everybody participated in the census.
Did yall know what the census decides and what it’s used for? It is used to decide what neighborhoods get the financial resources. The census directly affects how many senators and representatives you get in congress. That’s why it’s so vital to fill out the census. It only comes out every 10 years. You notice they don’t advertise the census too much, because they want to make sure that they keep that power, money, and resources in their communities. Each state is required by law to redraw its district lines based on the new census.
Which brings up VOTING and the reason why it is very very important to vote in EVERY election and not just the presidential election. These positions in politics are just as important if not more so, because they have a direct impact on your everyday life. The Governor, senator, mayor, police chief, fire chief, and the school superintendent affect everything in our community.
We must make sure that the voting rights act is signed into law because our ancestors suffered and died just so we could vote. Remember we didn’t always have that opportunity and once again they are trying to keep us from voting. We have to make sure that our votes are counted. We can’t let them use their slick and conniving tactics such as gerrymandering, cracking and packing; they can’t change the game, so they change the rules.
This is how the representatives are chosen in the senate and the house.
The number of representatives is decided by how many in their district.
The house of representatives makes and passes the laws with the senate to get signed by the president. They can only serve 2 years at a time.
They are also called the congressman and congresswomen.
They have to be at least 25 years old, a citizen for at least 7 years and they have to live in the state that they are representing.
Every state has at least one representative, and some have 2 or more up to 52. One representative for every 30,000 people.
I know many of us have heard the word gerrymandering and if you’re like me I was curious about what that meant.
Gerrymandering is the process of making sure that your party has an advantage, and the other party has a disadvantage. The reason for doing this is so they can have more seats in the House of Representatives which gives them more power to make the laws they want. Remember the congressmen and congresswomen are there to represent US or supposed to. Some other words in reference to gerrymandering, are cracking and packing. Cracking is spreading out the opposing party, so they won’t have as much power or a majority. Packing is putting more voters in a single district so they can have more power. The goal is to win as many districts as possible, so they can have more seats in congress, which means they can make more decisions and have more power to change things.
There are 3 types of gerrymandering. One that is used for black and brown people is racial gerrymandering. This is when minority people are packed in one district, so they won’t have as much power or be a majority.
Another type of gerrymandering is bipartisan which means they decide to share the power, or the courts decide they must share.
Finally, the last type of gerrymandering is partisan which means a voting party says that the gerrymander is unfair to the other party based on a voting bloc either through packing or cracking.
There are 2 main parties. Republican and Democratic.
Bipartisan-two parties
Partisan-one party
Gerrymandering- fixing districts to have an advantage.
Packing-putting more voters in one district to achieve more power.
Cracking-spreading out the opposing party to weaken them.
Republican-(GOP) grand old party
Democratic-
IS THIS WHAT’S IT’S GONE LOOK LIKE IN THE UPCOMING ELECTION I PRAY NOT.