Partisan Gerrymandering

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. JEFFRIES. Madam Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from North Carolina, Representative Wiley Nickel, for yielding and for his leadership on this incredibly important issue around prohibiting extreme partisan gerrymandering across the country and certainly in the great State of North Carolina.

I thank Representative Wiley Nickel for his extraordinary leadership in this Congress.

I thank Representative Kathy Manning for all that she has done to combat anti-Semitism and for many other issues throughout her time in Congress.

I thank Jeff Jackson for his leadership and certainly congratulate him on his continued journey as a public servant as the next attorney general from the great State of North Carolina.

These are three extraordinary public servants who were elected by the people but then unable to continue to serve not because of any decision made by the people of North Carolina, but because of extreme partisan gerrymandering by far-right extremists in the North Carolina legislature and this MAGA North Carolina Supreme Court. It is an extraordinary thing.

As Representative Nickel has indicated, the people of this great country should determine who represents them. We shouldn't have so- called representatives making the decision as to the people whom they will represent.

There has been a lot of talk in the aftermath of this most recent election about an extraordinary and overwhelming mandate. Let's just look at the State of North Carolina.

I congratulate the incoming President on his success in North Carolina--a close race--on his success in North Carolina and in every other battleground State. In that very same State, every single Democrat running statewide for constitutional office won, proving the point that North Carolina is an evenly divided State. It is a 50/50 State. That should be clear to anyone.

When fair maps were drawn in advance of the 2022 election, the North Carolina congressional delegation, upon the success of Representative Wiley Nickel in an evenly divided district, was seven Democrats and seven Republicans. That is the will of the people of North Carolina. It makes sense in an evenly divided 50-50 State.

Apparently, because far-right extremists in this country aren't convinced that they can win elections on their own or even hold the United States House of Representatives on their own, they decided to rip away three seats from the people of North Carolina through extreme partisan gerrymandering.

It is interesting. I hadn't fully thought about that because we are still counting votes, but as Representative Nickel indicated, Democrats are on their way to perhaps 215 seats. In the 119th Congress, when every single vote is counted in California, House Republicans will have 220 seats. By the way, that is the smallest majority of any incoming party, Democratic or Republican, since before the Great Depression.

What mandate? It is an evenly divided House of Representatives. The people of this country want us to work together, which we are willing to do, and find bipartisan common ground on any issue whenever and wherever possible to make life better for the American people and deliver real results for hardworking American taxpayers.

At the same period of time, we will push back against far-right extremism whenever necessary, but it is interesting that this so-called overwhelming mandate wouldn't have even yielded a majority in the House of Representatives if it wasn't for the extreme partisan gerrymandering that took place in the great State of North Carolina.

I thank Representative Nickel for raising this issue because it should shape how we proceed in the next Congress of finding bipartisan, common ground together to get things done because there is no mandate to enact far-right extremist policies in the United States House of Representatives or, by the way, anywhere in this country. That is the reality of this most recent election.

I thank Representative Nickel for his leadership, his service to the people of the great State of North Carolina, to the Congress, and to the country. I know that the great Representative from North Carolina is not finished in his public-service journey, and we look forward to the best being yet to come.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source