Damani Felder addressed recent criticism surrounding a Supreme Court ruling on congressional district maps, rejecting claims that the decision undermines the Voting Rights Act and arguing that it instead limits how race is used in drawing district boundaries.
In remarks discussing the ruling, Felder challenged the characterization that the decision harms minority voters, directly disputing that narrative.
“The Supreme Court just gutted the Voting Rights Act and made it harder for black and brown people to vote. No, they didn’t,” Felder said.
He continued, “And let me tell you why anyone saying that should actually be viewed with contempt, particularly if you are a minority, a black or brown person yourself.”
Felder described the ruling as a restriction on how districts can be drawn based on racial composition, referencing the case involving Louisiana.
“All the Supreme Court did was say, Hey, if you’re in a particular area, this case, Louisiana, you can’t look at a map and say, Hmm, this area is 85-90% black. Let me draw the lines around this district all funny, so that I get a bunch of black people in these districts, right?” he said.
“They said, You can’t do that anymore.”
According to Felder, the issue at the center of the debate is how political parties approach districts with large minority populations.
He argued that the ruling disrupts assumptions about how those voters will behave.
“Now, why would that be a problem? Why is it that the Democrat party thinks that it’s an affront to their hold on power?” Felder said.
He added, “They think that if you have a large minority group of people that’s all in the same area, they think that that means all those people are going to vote for them.”
Felder said that belief reflects an expectation that minority voters will support a single political party consistently.
“They think that those people are so afraid of blow back or getting punished or attacked that they will simply fall in lockstep and vote Democrat every single time,” he said.
He continued by referencing historical language to describe what he sees as the implications of that approach.
“There used to be a word for that started with the word s and rhymes with knavery,” Felder said.
Felder argued that the controversy surrounding the ruling stems from concerns about political advantage rather than voter access.
“See, that’s why they’re upset, right? Because they think that, oh, just because the chains were taken off by Republicans in the past, we want to keep those chains on now,” he said.
“And anything that gets in the way of us keeping a strangle hold on the black or brown population should be viewed as gutting the Voting Rights Act.”
He concluded by reiterating his view that the ruling prevents the use of race as a primary factor in drawing districts for political gain.
“And we’re just simply saying, Look, you cannot simply sit there and say there’s lots of black brown people in these areas. Let’s draw the maps in a way that we capture them all to ourselves, because we know that they are duty bound to vote for the Democrat party, or at least they think they are,” Felder said.
“You’re not going to like those facts, but that’s the truth.”
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