Racial gerrymandering kept Navajos from power. Is that about to change?
Republican-drawn voting districts left Native Americans voiceless despite their majorities. This election could bring sweeping change
Thu 1 Nov 2018 06.00 EDT Last modified on Thu 1 Nov 2018 06.02 EDT
James Adakai, the San Juan county Democratic party chairman, in Oljato, Utah. Photograph: Jeremy Miller for the Guardian
The community gathering took place in the northern reaches of the Navajo Nation. Hundreds of people lined up in view of Monument Valley’s towering red mesas to enjoy traditional singing and dancing but also to register to vote – and end the legacy of racial gerrymandering that, for decades, has blocked Native Americans from power in this isolated corner of the American west.
Here in southern Utah’s red rock country, as in other rural reaches of the US, Democrats are working hard to make the so-called blue wave a reality. But the history of disenfranchisement has cast a long shadow over the Navajo Nation, one they hope they can throw off in the election.
Today, Native Americans, who lean heavily Democratic, make up a slight majority in San Juan county, which encompasses this part of Utah. But for decades they were “packed” by Republican officials into a single district in the county’s southernmost reaches, echoing other partisan gerrymandering efforts across the US.
In 2016, a federal judge ruled that San Juan county had violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by illegally drawing contorted voting districts to disenfranchise Native American voters. In a follow-up ruling last December, the judge handed down newly drawn district maps that give Navajos a majority by population in two of the county’s three commission districts. If Navajo candidates win next week, it could reshape the region.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/01/navajo-nation-utah-midterm-election-gerrymandering
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