Thread by @BaltCofairmaps

A month ago, @julianejonesjr @Tom_Quirk @CouncilmanIzzy @WadeKach @CathyCouncil6 of the BaltCo Council voted unanimously for a district map that unlawfully dilutes the minority vote.

We warned them that the county would be sued.

🔥That was not an empty threat.🔥

🧵#FairMaps

The lawsuit against @BaltCoGov's racist district map, in which 6 of 7 districts are majority white despite the county being 48% people of color, has now been filed.

👉🏾The @ACLU_MD @NAACPBaltCounty are asking the court for an immediate injunction.

aclu-md.org/en/press-relea…

Even for those familiar with Baltimore County's history of racial exclusion, the evidence presented in these filings is DEVASTATING.

MUST READ: aclu-md.org/sites/default/…

Voting rights expert Matthew Barreto dissects how white voters in the county vote as a bloc against Black-preferred candidates, in election after election

The proportion of votes for white candidates--regardless of party!--rises w/the proportion of white voters in the district

Remember how the chair of the BaltCo redistricting commission said people "don't vote according to color"?

Wrong: White voters in BaltCo give <15% of their votes to Black candidates, while Black voters give between 75-90+% of theirs to Black candidates

BaltCo is "highly unusual," demographer Bill Cooper points out, with no incorporated municipalities, even in large communities.

Upshot: There are no municipal elected offices in majority-black communities, so there are no stepping stones for Black-preferred candidates.

That is: "By maintaining a government only at the County level," Cooper writes, "the White countywide majority generally remains able to defeat Black candidates of choice."

(And the council representing a 48% non-white county looks like this)

"Would-be Black candidates are discouraged from running," adds @NAACPBaltCounty's Tony Fugett, bc "they view the effort as futile," thx to "consistent losses by the few Black candidates who risked running county-wide or in majority-white districts"

They have the receipts

When the sole majority-black district was drawn in 2001, under activist pressure, "Black candidates rushed forward to seek public office," Fugett notes

Lawrence Brown, author of "The Black Butterfly," adds that BaltCo "is the most segregated major county in Maryland and one of the most hypersegregated metropolitan areas in the country"

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

What does that look like? In BaltCo, Cooper says:

👉🏽Black men earn <60 cents for every $1 earned by white men

👉🏽The Black unemployment rate is nearly 2x the white unemployment rate

👉🏽Twice as many Black residents lack health insurance & access to vehicles compared to whites

And despite massive demographic growth--over the past 20 years, the Black population in BaltCo grew by 75% while the white population declined by 20%, the County Council "completely rebuffed our efforts" to address racial equity, @NAACPBaltCounty's Fugett points out

"...while accommodating requests by white residents, such as by altering district lines after white residents of Towson and Country Club Estates..complained that initial redistricting lines split their communities," Fugett writes.

Of course, our demands for #fairmaps were rooted in federal civil rights law.

Theirs were not, Fugett points out.

Stay tuned for more. This fight is not over.

END