The largest non-partisan voter protection coalition in the US received more than 12,000 calls to its hotline from people struggling to cast their ballot amid a slew of new voter-ID laws.
–K.K. Ed Pilkington reports: In Ferguson, Missouri, scene of the recent riots following the police shooting of Michael Brown, There were several reports – to a national hotline for the largest non-partisan voter protection coalition in the US – of individual voters being asked to show their ID cards by police officers at polling stations.
The Lawyers Committeee for Civil Rights Under Law leads the nation's largest non-partisan voter protection program.
Some lawmakers have contended that current immigration laws, including the bi-partisan Trafficking Victim Protection Act (TVPA), are somehow responsible for the dramatic influx over the past several months of Central American youth seeking refuge in the United States.
Now the justices have to provide some guidance on how to tell whether race was the predominant motive when other goals, like partisan balance and the protection of an incumbent, also influenced the legislature's redistricting choices.
But with no sign of a breakthrough in a partisan dispute over Civil Service protections, the prospect for passage by year's end appeared dim.
But Walberg appears to also have a problem with Democrats talking about the Violence Against Women Act -- which was reauthorized in February 2013 after a drawn-out partisan battle over new protections for Native Americans and LGBT survivors of domestic abuse.
Their complaint described New York's usual redistricting process as "an exercise in partisan self-dealing and incumbent protection".
"This legislation would replace the current 'incumbent protection program' and partisan gerrymandering with a system based on independence, sound criteria and greater citizen involvement," Mr. Koch said in a statement.
In most states, legislatures control redistricting, and they typically use it for partisan advantage and for incumbent protection.
