Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I thank my good friend from North Carolina, Representative Wiley Nickel, for holding this Special Order hour so that we can talk about such an important issue, an issue that strikes at the very heart of our democracy, and that is gerrymandering. Last year, in my State of North Carolina, the Republican-led general assembly passed blatantly gerrymandered congressional districts engineered with one clear purpose: to reduce the number of Democrats in Congress. These new maps deliberately distort the will of the people, systematically diluting the votes of Democratic-leaning areas, like my district. Communities of interest were split, districts were manipulated with surgical precision, leaving many voters voiceless in the very communities they call home. In my own Sixth District, the city of Greensboro, a city of 300,000 people, was split into three parts. Each piece combined with farflung, ruby-red, rural districts. The majority of Greensboro was drawn into a district stretching across 10 counties all the way to the Tennessee border. In doing so, the new maps also separate the heart of Greensboro from High Point and from Winston-Salem, effectively dismantling a triad district, a community of interest that deserves cohesive representation. Remarkably, and not coincidentally, the newly drawn Sixth District gives a 16-point advantage to a Republican candidate over a Democratic one.…”