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Meet seventeen-year-old Eric Willoughby. [1]

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Date: 2023-10-01  

Eric Willoughby is a seventeen-year-old from Huntersville, North Carolina. He traveled two and a half hours by car to a MAGA GQP final legislative redistrict hearing, where the maps they drew have remained top secret and have not been provided to the public for review.

Listen to his words, as he will likely become a rock star on social media for some good old-fashioned truth-telling to power. I see a lot of promise for this young man’s future should he choose social justice and politics as a career.

He was not the only citizen to speak at the hearing, but he gained most of the social media traction on the limited coverage of the GOP hearing to kill democracy in the state.

Lynn Bonner of N.C. Newsline provides background information on the shenanigans of the N.C. Republican Party and their cohorts on the state Supreme Court, whose unofficial mantra is: if you can’t beat them, then cheat, lie, and steal the votes of N.C. citizens.

Last year, the Democratic majority on the state Supreme Court found that plans Republican legislators drew were extreme partisan gerrymanders that violated the state constitution. Congressional and legislative maps were redrawn. Redistricting experts determined that the first congressional district map the legislature approved in 2021 would have given Republicans 10 or 11 of North Carolina’s 14 seats. Under the court-ordered plan used in the 2022 elections, Republicans won seven congressional seats and Democrats won seven seats. Republicans won a majority on the state Supreme Court last year. The court quickly went about reversing last year’s decisions on partisan gerrymandering. The majority wrote that questions of partisanship in redistricting are not an issue for the courts. Federal courts don’t want partisan gerrymandering cases either. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2019, in a case originating in North Carolina, determined it had no role in judging partisanship in redistricting, saying it is an issue for the states. Republicans are expected to re-establish a GOP majority in the state’s congressional delegation. “I strongly suspect that on the congressional seats, which are now split 7-7, that the Republicans are going to draw something to give it more like 9-5,” Rep. Abe Jones, a Raleigh Democrat and a member of the House Redistricting Committee said after the hearing.

Four other outstanding speeches can be seen here.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/1/2196642/-Meet-seventeen-year-old-Eric-Willoughby

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