The GOP war on voting - Page 3 - Politics and Economics

Again, there is no reason to do this. At best this is a solution in search of a problem.

When you have no problem and still do things you admit will lower voting eligibility - even if it hit both "sides" equally - its still wrong.

Returning to a pre suffrage era would hit white women equally as hard as black women, so, awesome lets go ahead and do it?

10-06-2011 , 05:52 PM

#52

Money2Burn

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Quote:

Originally Posted by suzzer99

Obviously anywhere this is happening the republicans have enough of a majority that they don't need to compromise. I think we all know how much republicans love to compromise anyway.

I'd like to reiterate that if it's true that the Dems didn't even bother to suggest this or fight such an "obvious" and easily counterable(trust me, thats a word) attempt at voter suppression because "Why bother? They have strong majorities" Then whoever made that decision, if they claim to care about those poor people's votes they count on are despicable and incompetent and don't deserve to represent anyone.

10-06-2011 , 05:56 PM

#53

Money2Burn

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Quote:

Originally Posted by [Phill]

No doubt. I agree it's wrong. I just think it's counterproductive in the greater scheme of things to go with the most divisive explanation as to their motives without stronger evidence.

10-06-2011 , 05:58 PM

#54

DVaut1

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Money2Burn

Please explain how the problems DVaut enumerated couldn't also effect poor/old white Republican voters.

It could effect poor white people. It most certainly could. But blacks and racial minorities, non-English speakers (read: poor Latinos) are far more likely to fall prey to being illegitimately disenfranchised than whites since they're more likely to be poor.

The history of Jim Crow laws are instructive here: the creation of grandfather clauses was motivated by the fact that racist white Southerners former strategies (literacy tests and poll taxes) caught up too many poor illiterate whites in the net.

The game isn't to categorically disenfranchise every black person and spare white people the same. Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet, and of course, some poor white people are going to get caught up in the backwash of a voter ID law and be illegitimately disenfranchised. The point is just to exclude more would-be Democrat voters than GOPers, full-stop. Of course just disenfranchising poor people, period, white or black, isn't exactly a bad strategy for the GOP. Really downtrodden whites aren't their bread and butter base either.

So to that end, sure: maybe the GOP's strategy isn't necessarily and overtly racist like a Klan rally is. Maybe they're just trying to disenfranchise poor people. As it happens, in America, a disproportionate share of poor people happen to also be racial minorities, so it's something of a distinction without a difference.

The Tennessee anecdote is the perfect example of how even an ostensibly and superficially non-racist voter disenfranchisement that just on its face looks like it's targeted towards poor people could really victimize blacks, especially: People hold on to highly irrational beliefs and concerns in the face of contradictory evidence all the time. There's still a lot of racist white people. The GOP knows whites are more likely to be a mid-level, voter-ID-checking bureaucrat than a black person. Make enough arbitrary ID-acquisition requirements, empower the bureaucrats to be judges, and count on the fact you're more likely to have racist white people manning the gates to acquiring the voter IDs than racist blacks, and that's that, strategy created. It wouldn't take much effort for a strategic GOPer Secretary of State to load up whites in heavily black neighborhoods in government-ID-offices.

Some of you guys will poo-poo this as far-fetched, but a cursory investigation of the history of voting rights in America along with an even more superficial examination of the contours of Congressional districts and gerrymandering demonstrate that politicians have gone to tremendous lengths in the past to disenfranchise and/or dilute the power of racial minorities. You don't get Congressional districts like this by accident, and yeah, it takes a lot of time and effort to craft this kind of stuff:

Last edited by DVaut1; 10-06-2011 at 06:12 PM.

10-06-2011 , 06:00 PM

#55

Money2Burn

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Quote:

Originally Posted by suzzer99

There aren't as many of them. Seriously, you cannot be this out of it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Max Raker

Republicans would be better off if no poor people voted even though some of them vote republican.

Yeah, my bad. I had the percent/total worked backwards in my head. This doesn't greatly effect my overall argument, however.

10-06-2011 , 06:36 PM

#56

[Phill]

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Money2Burn

No doubt. I agree it's wrong. I just think it's counterproductive in the greater scheme of things to go with the most divisive explanation as to their motives without stronger evidence.

What stronger evidence would be required to consider this anything but a blatant attempt to disenfranchise segments of the population that overwhelmingly support the Democrats?

10-06-2011 , 07:06 PM

#57

Polycomb

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on the ID issue. can't people just use absentee ballots?

sorry if i'm being stupid, only voted in 2 states and haven't thought about an absentee ballot in a decade

10-06-2011 , 07:18 PM

#58

Max Raker

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Quote:

Originally Posted by [Phill]

What stronger evidence would be required to consider this anything but a blatant attempt to disenfranchise segments of the population that overwhelmingly support the Democrats?

Disenfranchiser picture ID imo

10-06-2011 , 07:34 PM

#59

suzzer99

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If you're really debating honestly on this than you are the most obtuse person on the entire internet. Either way I give up. Someone else can take up the cause.

10-06-2011 , 07:43 PM

#60

Money2Burn

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Quote:

Originally Posted by [Phill]

What stronger evidence would be required to consider this anything but a blatant attempt to disenfranchise segments of the population that overwhelmingly support the Democrats?

Look, in my view a much more plausible, simple explanation than a giant coordinated GOP plot is that many of these people actually believe that voter fraud is a very real threat despite the fact that very little voter fraud actually takes place. Yes it's irrational, but as I explained earlier these are people who, for the most part, are no strangers to holding on to irrational views despite little supporting evidence and even much evidence to the contrary eg their religious views and views on climate change.

Further evidence supporting your claim would be, as I said earlier, cases where Dems proposed reasonable alternatives that had less chance of disenfranchising poor voters (like Wookie's suggestion) were shot down or stonewalled by republicans. I'm completely open to being convinced, but saying "Well, why would the Dems even try because the Republicans have strong majorities" is not a very convincing argument.

10-06-2011 , 07:57 PM

#61

suzzer99

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/01-3

Quote:

Republicans have long tried to drive Democratic voters away from the polls. "I don't want everybody to vote," the influential conservative activist Paul Weyrich told a gathering of evangelical leaders in 1980. "As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." But since the 2010 election, thanks to a conservative advocacy group founded by Weyrich, the GOP's effort to disrupt voting rights has been more widespread and effective than ever. In a systematic campaign orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council – and funded in part by David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers who bankrolled the Tea Party – 38 states introduced legislation this year designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process.

All told, a dozen states have approved new obstacles to voting. Kansas and Alabama now require would-be voters to provide proof of citizenship before registering. Florida and Texas made it harder for groups like the League of Women Voters to register new voters. Maine repealed Election Day voter registration, which had been on the books since 1973. Five states – Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia – cut short their early voting periods. Florida and Iowa barred all ex-felons from the polls, disenfranchising thousands of previously eligible voters. And six states controlled by Republican governors and legislatures – Alabama, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin – will require voters to produce a government-issued ID before casting ballots. More than 10 percent of U.S. citizens lack such identification, and the numbers are even higher among constituencies that traditionally lean Democratic – including 18 percent of young voters and 25 percent of African-Americans.

Nothing to see here, move along...

Quote:

GOP outcries over the phantom menace of voter fraud escalated after 2008, when Obama's candidacy attracted historic numbers of first-time voters. In the 29 states that record party affiliation, roughly two-thirds of new voters registered as Democrats in 2007 and 2008 – and Obama won nearly 70 percent of their votes. In Florida alone, Democrats added more than 600,000 new voters in the run-up to the 2008 election, and those who went to the polls favored Obama over John McCain by 19 points. "This latest flood of attacks on voting rights is a direct shot at the communities that came out in historic numbers for the first time in 2008 and put Obama over the top," says Tova Wang, an elections-reform expert at Demos, a progressive think tank.

No one has done more to stir up fears about the manufactured threat of voter fraud than Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a top adviser in the Bush Justice Department who has become a rising star in the GOP. "We need a Kris Kobach in every state," declared Michelle Malkin, the conservative pundit. This year, Kobach successfully fought for a law requiring every Kansan to show proof of citizenship in order to vote – even though the state prosecuted only one case of voter fraud in the past five years. The new restriction fused anti-immigrant hysteria with voter-fraud paranoia. "In Kansas, the illegal registration of alien voters has become pervasive," Kobach claimed, offering no substantiating evidence.

Kobach also asserted that dead people were casting ballots, singling out a deceased Kansan named Alfred K. Brewer as one such zombie voter. There was only one problem: Brewer was still very much alive. The Wichita Eagle found him working in his front yard. "I don't think this is heaven," Brewer told the paper. "Not when I'm raking leaves."

Yeah Kansas that bastion of illegal aliens and voter fraud, and zombie voting apparently.

Quote:

The Republican effort, coordinated and funded at the national level, has focused on disenfranchising voters in four key areas:

Barriers to Registration
Since January, six states have introduced legislation to impose new restrictions on voter registration drives run by groups like Rock the Vote and the League of Women Voters. In May, the GOP-controlled legislature in Florida passed a law requiring anyone who signs up new voters to hand in registration forms to the state board of elections within 48 hours of collecting them, and to comply with a barrage of onerous, bureaucratic requirements. Those found to have submitted late forms would face a $1,000 fine, as well as possible felony prosecution.

As a result, the law threatens to turn civic-minded volunteers into inadvertent criminals. Denouncing the legislation as "good old-fashioned voter suppression," the League of Women Voters announced that it was ending its registration efforts in Florida, where it has been signing up new voters for the past 70 years. Rock the Vote, which helped 2.5 million voters to register in 2008, could soon follow suit. "We're hoping not to shut down," says Heather Smith, president of Rock the Vote, "but I can't say with any certainty that we'll be able to continue the work we're doing."

The registration law took effect one day after it passed, under an emergency statute designed for "an immediate danger to the public health, safety or welfare." In reality, though, there's no evidence that registering fake voters is a significant problem in the state. Over the past three years, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has received just 31 cases of suspected voter fraud, resulting in only three arrests statewide. "No one could give me an example of all this fraud they speak about," said Mike Fasano, a Republican state senator who bucked his party and voted against the registration law. What's more, the law serves no useful purpose: Under the Help America Vote Act passed by Congress in 2002, all new voters must show identity before registering to vote.

Cuts to Early Voting
After the recount debacle in Florida in 2000, allowing voters to cast their ballots early emerged as a popular bipartisan reform. Early voting not only meant shorter lines on Election Day, it has helped boost turnout in a number of states – the true measure of a successful democracy. "I think it's great," Jeb Bush said in 2004. "It's another reform we added that has helped provide access to the polls and provide a convenience. And we're going to have a high voter turnout here, and I think that's wonderful."

But Republican support for early voting vanished after Obama utilized it as a key part of his strategy in 2008. Nearly 30 percent of the electorate voted early that year, and they favored Obama over McCain by 10 points. The strategy proved especially effective in Florida, where blacks outnumbered whites by two to one among early voters, and in Ohio, where Obama received fewer votes than McCain on Election Day but ended up winning by 263,000 ballots, thanks to his advantage among early voters in urban areas like Cleveland and Columbus.

That may explain why both Florida and Ohio – which now have conservative Republican governors – have dramatically curtailed early voting for 2012. Next year, early voting will be cut from 14 to eight days in Florida and from 35 to 11 days in Ohio, with limited hours on weekends. In addition, both states banned voting on the Sunday before the election – a day when black churches historically mobilize their constituents. Once again, there appears to be nothing to justify the changes other than pure politics. "There is no evidence that any form of convenience voting has led to higher levels of fraud," reports the Early Voting Information Center at Reed College.

Photo IDs
By far the biggest change in election rules for 2012 is the number of states requiring a government-issued photo ID, the most important tactic in the Republican war on voting. In April 2008, the Supreme Court upheld a photo-ID law in Indiana, even though state GOP officials couldn't provide a single instance of a voter committing the type of fraud the new ID law was supposed to stop. Emboldened by the ruling, Republicans launched a nationwide effort to implement similar barriers to voting in dozens of states.

The campaign was coordinated by the American Legislative Exchange Council, which provided GOP legislators with draft legislation based on Indiana's ID requirement. In five states that passed such laws in the past year – Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin – the measures were sponsored by legislators who are members of ALEC. "We're seeing the same legislation being proposed state by state by state," says Smith of Rock the Vote. "And they're not being shy in any of these places about clearly and blatantly targeting specific demographic groups, including students."

In Texas, under "emergency" legislation passed by the GOP-dominated legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Perry, a concealed-weapon permit is considered an acceptable ID but a student ID is not. Republicans in Wisconsin, meanwhile, mandated that students can only vote if their IDs include a current address, birth date, signature and two-year expiration date – requirements that no college or university ID in the state currently meets. As a result, 242,000 students in Wisconsin may lack the documentation required to vote next year. "It's like creating a second class of citizens in terms of who gets to vote," says Analiese Eicher, a Dane County board supervisor.

The barriers erected in Texas and Wisconsin go beyond what the Supreme Court upheld in Indiana, where 99 percent of state voters possess the requisite IDs and can turn to full-time DMVs in every county to obtain the proper documentation. By contrast, roughly half of all black and Hispanic residents in Wisconsin do not have a driver's license, and the state staffs barely half as many DMVs as Indiana – a quarter of which are open less than one day a month. To make matters worse, Gov. Scott Walker tried to shut down 16 more DMVs – many of them located in Democratic-leaning areas. In one case, Walker planned to close a DMV in Fort Atkinson, a liberal stronghold, while opening a new office 30 minutes away in the conservative district of Watertown.

Although new ID laws have been approved in seven states, the battle over such barriers to voting has been far more widespread. Since January, Democratic governors in Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire and North Carolina have all vetoed ID laws. Voters in Mississippi and Missouri are slated to consider ballot initiatives requiring voter IDs, and legislation is currently pending in Pennsylvania.

One of the most restrictive laws requiring voter IDs was passed in South Carolina. To obtain the free state ID now required to vote, the 178,000 South Carolinians who currently lack one must pay for a passport or a birth certificate. "It's the stepsister of the poll tax," says Browne-Dianis of the Advancement Project. Under the new law, many elderly black residents – who were born at home in the segregated South and never had a birth certificate – must now go to family court to prove their identity. Given that obtaining fake birth certificates is one of the country's biggest sources of fraud, the new law may actually prompt some voters to illegally procure a birth certificate in order to legally vote – all in the name of combating voter fraud.

For those voters who manage to get a legitimate birth certificate, obtaining a voter ID from the DMV is likely to be hellishly time-consuming. A reporter for the Tri-State Defender in Memphis, Tennessee – another state now mandating voter IDs – recently waited for four hours on a sweltering July day just to see a DMV clerk. The paper found that the longest lines occur in urban precincts, a clear violation of the Voting Rights Act, which bars states from erecting hurdles to voting in minority jurisdictions.

Disenfranchising Ex-Felons
The most sweeping tactic in the GOP campaign against voting is simply to make it illegal for certain voters to cast ballots in any election. As the Republican governor of Florida, Charlie Crist restored the voting rights of 154,000 former prisoners who had been convicted of nonviolent crimes. But in March, after only 30 minutes of public debate, Gov. Rick Scott overturned his predecessor's decision, instantly disenfranchising 97,491 ex-felons and prohibiting another 1.1 million prisoners from being allowed to vote after serving their time.

"Why should we disenfranchise people forever once they've paid their price?" Bill Clinton asked during his speech in July. "Because most of them in Florida were African-Americans and Hispanics and would tend to vote for Democrats – that's why."

A similar reversal by a Republican governor recently took place in Iowa, where Gov. Terry Branstad overturned his predecessor's decision to restore voting rights to 100,000 ex-felons. The move threatens to return Iowa to the recent past, when more than five percent of all residents were denied the right to vote – including a third of the state's black residents. In addition, Florida and Iowa join Kentucky and Virginia as the only states that require all former felons to apply for the right to vote after finishing their prison sentences.

In response to the GOP campaign, voting-rights advocates are scrambling to blunt the impact of the new barriers to voting. The ACLU and other groups are challenging the new laws in court, and congressional Democrats have asked the Justice Department to use its authority to block or modify any of the measures that discriminate against minority voters. "The Justice Department should be much more aggressive in areas covered by the Voting Rights Act," says Rep. Lewis.

But beyond waging battles at the state and federal level, voting-rights advocates must figure out how to reframe the broader debate. The real problem in American elections is not the myth of voter fraud, but how few people actually participate. Even in 2008, which saw the highest voter turnout in four decades, fewer than two-thirds of eligible voters went to the polls. And according to a study by MIT, 9 million voters were denied an opportunity to cast ballots that year because of problems with their voter registration (13 percent), long lines at the polls (11 percent), uncertainty about the location of their polling place (nine percent) or lack of proper ID (seven percent).

Come Election Day 2012, such problems will only be exacerbated by the flood of new laws implemented by Republicans. Instead of a single fiasco in Florida, experts warn, there could be chaos in a dozen states as voters find themselves barred from the polls. "Our democracy is supposed to be a government by, of and for the people," says Browne-Dianis. "It doesn't matter how much money you have, what race you are or where you live in the country – we all get to have the same amount of power by going into the voting booth on Election Day. But those who passed these laws believe that only some people should participate. The restrictions undermine democracy by cutting off the voices of the people."

10-06-2011 , 08:34 PM

#62

bernie

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I'm surprised no one is advocating drug testing to be able to vote.

b

10-06-2011 , 08:36 PM

#63

[Phill]

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What that article outlines is disgusting.

10-06-2011 , 08:40 PM

#64

Chips Ahoy

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Quote:

Originally Posted by suzzer99

I propose we require people to vote as a condition for their welfare or medicaid checks.

This is brilliant. I want to see it.

10-06-2011 , 08:48 PM

#65

suzzer99

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Quote:

Originally Posted by [Phill]

What that article outlines is disgusting.

Yeah I kept looking for highlights to quote and pretty much the whole article is highlights.

10-06-2011 , 08:51 PM

#66

[Phill]

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Id have bolded the sunday ban. There is literally no reason to ban people voting on a sunday if they can vote on the saturday before and the monday after other than to disenfranchise black people. Its not even subtle and there is zero excuse.

Also i think allowing student IDs on conditions so stringent that no colleges meet them was pretty blatant too.

10-06-2011 , 08:55 PM

#67

Case Closed

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The idea that we can deny voting rights from ex-felons is so disgusting to me that I can't even write a coherent post about it. There is just so much rage that people think it is ok to do that.

10-06-2011 , 08:59 PM

#68

Max Raker

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Money2Burn

Well of course joe blow republican doesn't know jack **** about anything. And the strategists that are payed millions to help win elections know this and use it when it is advantageous. This is obv one of those cases. Dems do it to, but obv are going to have different tactics aimed at different demos.

10-06-2011 , 09:05 PM

#69

the steam

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Grunch
Bars,airlines,motels,insurance companies,realty companies,banks,post office are all racists because you need ID.

10-06-2011 , 09:51 PM

#70

Money2Burn

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Quote:

Originally Posted by DVaut1

I'm sure you realize this, but gerrymandering is used both ways, take a look at Corrine Brown's (Florida Representative, Go Gata!) district. I doubt you were trying to make the point that gerrymandering is used exclusively to disenfranchise minority voters so w/e. Other than that, this is a much more reasonable line of explanation, although I disagree with some minor parts that are irrelevant to the main argument. I never intended to get sucked this far into this discussion, but here I am getting lectured about Poll Taxes anyway because Phill's methods of argumentation tilt me and I couldn't just let it go.

10-06-2011 , 09:58 PM

#71

Money2Burn

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Yeah, I'm just pissed at myself and feel very silly right now. I really don't like a lot of the the lines Phill and Suzzer take to argue and I totally got carried away itt. Ugh, my apologies for the obtuseness.

10-06-2011 , 10:13 PM

#72

DVaut1

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I'm not saying gerrymandering is exclusively a tool of the GOP and exclusively used to **** over racial minorities, but what that picture is attempting to demonstrate is politicians spend a lot of time noodling over the racial makeup of voting cohorts. Illinois 4 is drawn to pack every latino in northern Illinois into one Congressional district. In 2000, the Illinois GOP spent a ****ton of money, like hundreds of thousands/millions to a firm to map out on a street by street basis where the latinos are and get them into that district. It's not absurd to think some jackasses in Tennessee who control the state government aren't above making sure their ID checkers scrutinize prospective black voter credentials much more than whites. Now I think some people hear that and think I'm referencing some secret conspiracy and a couple of closeted Klan member bureaucrats exchanging winks or something. But it doesn't have to be that. It's Tennessee, old irrationalities die hard. Just making sure your ID checkers are mostly white has a decent chance of getting the desired result.

Not you specifically, but you see plenty of "ID?!?! What's so absurd about that, everyone has one, and if you don't, THEY'LL GIVE YOU ONE FOR FREE. HOW IS THAT RACIST?!!?" but then ignoring the fact that grandma can bring a lease, a birth certificate, a rent receipt and her former voter registration card to the registration office and still not get an ID, to say nothing of the difficulty of old poor people to get around, stand in line, etc.

It's either a serious lack of imagination and/or willful ignorance to assume these kinds of superficially race neutral barriers to voting can't be abused for nefarious purposes. The right's incredulous masses can derp derp that, but there's a long and storied history of superficially race neutral barriers to voting being used for nefarious purposes to disenfranchise blacks.

Now, that picture of the Illinois 4th district doesn't prove anything about the burden of voter IDs, but it is a vivid example of how race conscious politicians continue to be.

Last edited by DVaut1; 10-06-2011 at 10:22 PM.

10-06-2011 , 10:30 PM

#73

[Phill]

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Quote:

Originally Posted by the steam

Grunch
Bars,airlines,motels,insurance companies,realty companies,banks,post office are all racists because you need ID.

Tbh i havent read all of the constitution or its amendments, but i dont think bars, airlines and motels are constitutionally guaranteed.

10-06-2011 , 10:38 PM

#74

Nichlemn

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Quote:

Originally Posted by DVaut1

Is IL-04 really a Republican plot? Ostensibly, its purpose is to guarantee it elects a Hispanic. Now, at 75% Hispanic it's perhaps unnecessarily packed, but what would reducing the Hispanic percentage do? Probably increase the size of the Hispanic minority in other Democratic-held districts in Chicago. Why do Republicans care?