Thread by @lekhashupeck

Here at the Legislative Office Building waiting for the 3:30pm joint House and Senate Redistricting Committee to get started. Today they're supposed to discuss these proposed criteria: ncleg.gov/documentsites/…

Sen. Daniel is presiding. He says there will be 60 speaking slots tomorrow morning during the two hour hearing starting at 8:30am. We still have gotten no idea how people can sign up to speak.

This is what we heard off hand but there's been no official announcement:

https://twitter.com/JBremerDevt/status/1424815850511638528

We were also told that a lot of people signed up already. How they signed up to speak when I, who follow this process as closely as anyone, have no idea how to sign up - well I'll leave that to your imagination #ncpol #corruptbullshitasusual

Sen. Newton is reading out the criteria I linked in the first tweet. If you want to know more join our redistricting criteria training tonight: mobilize.us/allontheline/e…

One criterion I do want to draw your attention to is this

They thought they would be cute and call what is obviously Incumbent Protection something else - "member residence"

Also, if you genuinely believe these people are not using political data behind the scenes to draw these maps I have a canal in Panama to sell you

Sen. Marcus brings up that the language around VTD and municipal splits is vague as to when that is permiseible

As you can see this only says VTDs "should be split only when necessary" doesn't say when it's necessary. Newton says that it has no legal import 🤯

Similarly with municipal boundaries it just says that they may consider municipal boundaries which means absolutely nothing.

These criteria aren't criteria at all. They're anti-criteria, so purposefully vague as to allow legislators to do anything that want

The committee leadership are trying to explain that the criteria do mean something, of course, they just didn't want to write it down 🙄

Sen. Clark is asking about how county clusters will be selected since this wasn't an issue in 2019 bc 2011 clusters were used.

Sen. Daniel says that he doesn't think the same county clusters were used bc he's served in different districts over the past decade showing he understands exactly ZERO about what county clusters actually are.

This is how you know all the real work is being done by other people, consultants and party operatives, because this kind of ignorance is so apparent.

And while I was composing that little rant the meeting ended 😅