The other day during the impeachment hearing I did a little research which proved enlightening. It had to do with the eleven states that represented the Confederacy in the Civil War. I wondered how those states are currently represented in the U.S. House of Representatives. Here’s what I found.
The Confederate states were South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. 138 members of Congress represent those states.
Of the 138, 90 members are Republicans while 48 are Democrats.
Of the 90 Republicans, 88 are men. 2 are women. 89 out of the 90 are white (the one black member, Will Hurd of Texas is not running for reelection).
Of the 48 Democrats from the Confederate states, 29 are men and 19 are women. Also 19 are white while 29 are members of a minority group.
So you may be asking yourself, “What’s your point?” My point if this. This did not happen by accident. The fact that Republican representation in these states is 98% male and soon to be 100% white is by design. Republicans cheat in order to win. They cheated in the 2016 election by welcoming Russian help. And they tried to cheat in the lead-up to the 2020 election by seeking Ukrainian help but fortunately got caught. In addition to welcoming foreign intervention, two other favorite Republican tools to help them cheat are partisan gerrymandering and voter suppression.
If you live in one of these states, or in any number of other states controlled by Republicans, I hope you will resolve to change the playing field in the future to make things fair. Support groups like the ACLU, CREW, or the Southern Poverty Law Center. Get active in a local Indivisible, or MoveOn or Working Families group. Donate your time or your money to help more women and minorities win elected office. It’s time to stop the Republican cheaters in their tracks.