Sneed speaks with Memphis coalition against Republican redistricting

U.S. House candidate Andrew Sneed appeared at a Memphis press conference Friday, where congressional candidates from across the country criticized Republican-led redistricting.

The event, hosted by the nonprofit Vote Common Good at Centenary United Methodist Church in Memphis, brought together current and former Democratic U.S. House and Senate candidates from Arkansas, Tennessee, Texas, Florida, New Hampshire and California. The candidates called for a united front in support of stronger protections against what they described as racial and partisan gerrymandering.

Tennessee state Representative Justin J. Pearson, who is running for the U.S. House in Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District, opened the event. The district was redrawn by the state Legislature in May, splitting the Black-majority district and folding parts of it into nearby Republican-leaning districts.

“What we have seen happen across our country and in the state of Tennessee has been a white supremacist attack on democracy, and we have felt that personally here in Memphis, as our district was broken up into thirds,” Pearson said.

“We are in a really important time in our country, and in the history of our country. And it is gonna require a coalition of goodhearted people, who believe in preserving this constitutional democratic republic experiment,” he said.

Sneed, a candidate for Alabama’s 5th Congressional District, connected Republican-led redistricting efforts in Tennessee to the redrawing of Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District and calls from several Alabama Republican leaders to redraw the 7th Congressional District to favor the GOP.

“In Alabama, we are feeling this acutely. We are all Memphis,” Sneed said. “In the 2nd Congressional District in Alabama, the 7th Congressional District in Alabama, we are seeing this in real time played out, and I believe we have to come together as candidates and realize that it’s not just us who are Memphis, it’s the entire United States.”

Sneed said Democrats need to build coalitions such as the group of candidates brought together by Vote Common Good.

“I believe we as a Democratic Party have to offer this message to the American people, that we have a path, that we have a way forward, if we’ll do it together,” he said.

In a statement Friday, Sneed’s campaign highlighted Vote Common Good’s call for voting rights reforms, including the “restoration and strengthening” of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a national independent redistricting commission and a ban on mid-decade redistricting “undertaken for partisan advantage.”

“The Supreme Court’s failure to uphold the VRA only drags us back, and there is simply no justification for it. That’s why I’ve been advocating for an enforceable code of ethics for the U.S. Supreme Court,” Sneed said.

“Exercising your right to vote couldn’t be more important than it is right now,” he said. “To be very clear, if your vote didn’t matter, they wouldn’t be working so hard to take it away. So please, don’t give up hope, don’t give up the fight. This election is the most consequential election in our lifetime.”

Pearson closed the event with a call to action, describing the candidates’ pledges to protect minority representation as a continuation of the demonstrations of the Civil Rights Movement that helped secure the Voting Rights Act.

“Our ancestors and elders were fighting this fight before we got here, and they were fighting before any of us knew we were going to be running for Congress,” Pearson said. “They were marching on the Edmund Pettus Bridge not knowing any of us would be here in this hallowed space, speaking up for millions of people, but they marched on and fought on anyway. And this is our time. This is our moment to do the marching.”

Alabama runoff elections will take place Tuesday. Sneed will face Candice Duvieilh for the Democratic nomination in Alabama’s 5th Congressional District. The winner will face incumbent U.S. Representative Dale Strong, R-Alabama, in the November 3 general election.