Congressman Cohen Discusses Gerrymandering and Voting Rights at Judiciary Subcommittee Hearing

WASHINGTON - Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-9), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, discussed the travesty for representation that is the partisan Congressional redistricting of Tennessee's 9^th District. The majority-minority Tennessee Congressional District that Congressman Cohen has represented for more than 19 years was divided into three Republican-leaning districts by the Tennessee General Assembly last week.

The state legislature acted after the U.S. Supreme Court's Louisiana v. Callais ruling, allowing states to draw Congressional district maps without regard to race.

At the hearing, ostensibly on the impact of Sharia Law in the United States, Congressman Cohen said a hearing on changes in the law affecting Congressional representation would be far more useful. In previous Congresses, Congressman Cohen served as Chairman of the Subcommittee, and held numerous hearings on the continuing impact of discrimination in voting.

In his remarks, he spoke of the sacrifices of Civil Rights giants that led to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that are now being "put asunder." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968.

In his remarks, he said in part:

"I was recently redistricted. That's a bigger threat to this country than anything we're talking about here…

"(Redistricting is happening) in the legislatures of the South, because of Donald Trump's fear of oversight by the next Congress - a fear that his extreme trampling of the Constitution, selling of pardons, emoluments clause violations, crypto-schemes - will be exposed…

"(Supreme Court Chief Justice) John Roberts said that the Supreme Court of the United States is not political. It is an arm of the Trump White House. They took this (Callais) case up because Virginia had given Democrats (new districts) and they needed to act…

"We ought to have hearings on changes in our laws that don't allow people to be represented in Congress, changing the rights and opportunities for African Americans to be equal citizens of this country and it's being turned back…America is being destroyed from within 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."

See his entire remarks here.

# # #