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Vermilion Parish NAACP & Southern Poverty Law Center push for equal voting power
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ABBEVILLE, La. (KLFY) -- An important council meeting was held tonight where the Vermilion Parish NAACP and the Southern Poverty Law Center met with the city council after an ongoing fight to improve the redistricting map that includes all residents with equal voting power.
In 2023 News 10 reported about the lawsuit against the city council claiming their district map denied equal representation to voters in violation of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Ahmed Soussi, the Senior Staff Attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center explained the fight started in 2021 when their organization, along with the Vermilion NAACP, sent a letter to the Abbeville City Council informing it of its constitutional duty of redistricting and creating fair and equitable maps. Then in 2022, both organizations attended a City Council and explained that the city could not keep its current district configuration, which dated back to 2010, as it violated the Equal Protection clause, specifically the one person, one vote requirement.
“However, the city voted unanimously not to redistrict and keep its same configuration which brought us in 2023 to file our lawsuit and we've been fighting since that time to try to get the city of Abbeville to pass a fair map,” explained Soussi. “In this multiyear process, the Vermilion NAACP has proposed at least four different maps to show it is possible in Abbeville to create exactly proportional districts for its four city council districts.”
He said despite this, the city of Abbeville continued to fight them, wasting taxpayer resources when there was an easy solution. The city of Abbeville displayed a redistricting map, but the concerned Soussi said, “It still does not get the job done and aligns with its constitutional duty.”
Soussi added that the Vermilion NAACP has created another map that is proportional while the Abbeville City Council map has a 200-person difference between districts, whereas the Vermilion NAACP map is nearly proportional with only a 20-person difference.
“In the city of Abbeville elections are decided by one person. If you go back to the last special election. One person made that decision, which shows how extremely crucial it is to have equal districts in the city so no one's vote counts more or less,” he said.
Soussi said the Vermilion NAACP map has the same base configuration as what the city is proposing. However, the city in its proposed map is trying to retain the same configuration for District D all the way back till 2010.
“District D is the only majority black district, but it has a total black population of nearly 70%. That is what we call packing and is very problematic and against the Constitution,” he said.
The Vermilion NAACP map unpacks the community there and provides equal voting power.
“The City Council has the opportunity to do the fair thing and fair not on a motion but on hard data and provide the voters one person, one vote. So, when they want to fix a pothole or beautify their parks, they can do that,” he said.
You can check out more information in the Vermilion NAACP map presentation below. The ordinance was voted on unanimously to move the city’s map to the full council to discuss and take action for the next scheduled public meeting. This will be updated once more information becomes available.
“They’ve had the Vermilion NAACP map for a while now. This isn't going to be the first time they've seen this map but just to stress, this is one of multiple configurations the Vermilion NAACP has sent to the city to show that with its four city council districts, it is extremely easy to create fair and equitable districts. Hopefully, the Abbeville City Council does the fair thing for all the voters and adopts the Vermilion NAACP map. If Abbeville retains its map, there is a chance that litigation continues but I want to stress that the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Vermilion NAACP, its main priority is not to continue fighting. We want to go home. Our goal is to ensure that every single person in Abbeville votes counts the same, and the Vermilion NAACP map does that. Whereas the city's map doesn't. So, there can be the possibility of another long, drawn-out litigation process that ultimately hurts the taxpayers of Abbeville having to pay for these services. So, our goal is hopefully we can find a way to ensure every vote counts the same.”