House Democrats Launch Voter Protection Effort Ahead of Midterms

House Democrats are doubling down on the “largest voter protection effort in the history of the country,” Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Thursday, after legal decisions around redistricting and red state legislatures’ efforts to redraw maps have threatened Black Democrats’ seats across the Deep South.

“We’re operating under the assumption that Republicans are planning the largest voter suppression effort in the history of the country,” Jeffries said before a House Democratic Caucus meeting focused on Democrats’ response to the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision.

At the meeting, House Administration ranking member Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) briefed his colleagues on Democrats’ “election security strategy” after the Supreme Court decision voiding majority-Black districts for what the conservative justices ruled unconstitutional racial gerrymandering, according to a readout shared by committee spokesperson Jamitress Bowden.

The ruling puts at risk multiple members of the influential Congressional Black Caucus, just as Jeffries is in position to become the first Black House speaker if Democrats flip the chamber in midterm elections. In discussing their electoral strategy, CBC members evoked Black leaders’ efforts to fight back against Jim Crow-era voter suppression.

“We’ve seen this before,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.). “We’ve been under attack before. And we’re gonna unite, and we’re gonna make sure, again, as it has happened in the ‘60s and others, we’re gonna win and preserve this country.”

Morelle’s election strategy presentation highlighted the “realities in the wake of the Callais decision,” according to the readout from his office.

He discussed the need for collaboration with “civil society and state and local partners” to ”identify threats and prepare response strategies,” signaled upcoming members-only meetings on the topic, and informed members about how to “empower and inform constituents” on voting rights, according to Bowden’s readout.