Troy --

On Monday, Republicans launched one of the sleaziest, most shameful maneuvers I’ve ever witnessed.

While most of America was celebrating President Obama’s inauguration, Republicans in Virginia rammed through an unconstitutional, Tom DeLay-style mid-decade gerrymander designed to isolate minority voters and guarantee an extreme Republican majority for years to come.

Republicans normally wouldn’t have had the votes to pass this outrageous gerrymander – so they delayed the vote until one Democrat had left for the inauguration.

We must act now to stop this scheme in its tracks – please sign our petition calling for an end to Virginia Republicans’ blatant, partisan power-grab!

The state Senator who was away – Henry Marsh – spent more than 50 years as a pioneering civil rights attorney and later served as Richmond’s first African American Mayor. He wanted to witness the historic second inauguration of our first African American president, on Martin Luther King Day, and he deserved to have that chance.

But Republicans exploited Sen. Marsh’s absence to pass an illegal gerrymander designed to isolate minority voters in just a handful of districts. This cannot stand.

Sign our petition today: Please join our call to stop Virginia Republicans’ unconstitutional gerrymandering!

Schemes like this are how Republicans plan to cling to power and keep pushing their right-wing social agenda down voters’ throats, even in states like Virginia that are becoming more Democratic.

They already tried voter suppression, but that didn’t work. So now they’re trying to rig the next election.  Make sure Republicans know they won’t get away with this.

Sincerely,

John Winston - National Political Director
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee