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CHAPEL HILL – The League of Women Voters of North Carolina today called on the state’s voters and legislators to take action in North Carolina to end gerrymandering. In today’s ruling on Rucho v. League of Women Voters of North Carolina, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to set a test enabling courts to determine when partisan gerrymandering has gone too far, finding that partisan gerrymandering is non-justiciable.
“Today’s decision is devastating to the voters in North Carolina who have lived with unconstitutional districts in the last four federal elections,” said Janet Hoy, outgoing co-president of the League of Women Voters of North Carolina and a named plaintiff in the case. “While we were hopeful that the Court would set a standard to address extreme gerrymandering cases like ours, we will continue to work on getting fair maps for North Carolinians through action right here in North Carolina.” Read more CONGRESS SHOULD PASS THE FOR THE PEOPLE ACT TO MODERNIZE OUR ELECTIONS AND INCREASE TRANSPARENCY
WASHINGTON – President of the League of Women Voters of the United States Chris Carson issued the following statement in response to the Mueller report: “The Special Counsel’s report makes one thing crystal clear: a foreign government interfered in the 2016 presidential election. Congress must now take bold action to secure our elections systems from future attacks. To do so, Congress must have access to the full report and the underlying investigative documentation to understand the full scope of the attack.” Read more. WASHINGTON – The League of Women Voters is proud to support the For the People Act, the Senate companion bill to H.R. 1 that passed the U.S. House of Representatives on March 8. Find out more.
LWVUS sent a letter to the U.S. House urging Representatives to support HR4, the Voting Rights Advancement Act. This legislation is a direct response to the Shelby v. Holder decision in 2013. It will modernize the coverage formula in the Voting Rights Act ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Read more.
LWVUS joined other civil rights organizations supporting the Native American Voting Rights Act of 2019. This legislation will remove barriers for Native Americans when registering to vote and expand opportunities for these indigenous people to participate in the voting process. Find out more.
Slaughter Houses Can Kill Rivers While there has been thorough reporting on the sale of land for a recently opened Mountaire poultry processing plant in Siler City, there has been less said about the plant’s harmful environmental impact on Love’s Creek, Rocky River and downstream into the Cape Fear Watershed. Mountaire opened its Siler City slaughter house in January. As one of the country’s largest poultry processors, with sales over $2 billion in 2017, Mountaire Farms is expected to employ over 1,000 people and eject enormous amounts of polluted wastewater. It has been sued more than once in its home state of Delaware for violating the Clean Water Act and the company has a history of noncompliance. The draft amended permit proposed by the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) Division of Water Resources (DWR) allows Mountaire to send its polluted wastewater to Siler City Wastewater Treatment Plant without removing harmful nitrogen. This will further harm the Rocky River, in which North Carolinians currently cannot safely fish, swim, or boat because of excess nitrogen that causes algae blooms and fish kills. Siler City naturally welcomes many new jobs in this essentially rural area. The Town is to be commended for working to secure grants to help their waste water treatment plant deal with the huge quantities of contaminants, especially nitrogen, that will be discharged. The price tag to upgrade the Siler City Wastewater Treatment Plant will be substantial and the Town has secured only a small portion of the funding it will need to make those upgrades. The amended permit before the DEQ would limit nitrogen to be discharged beginning in 2023. Meanwhile Mountaire is set to discharge more nitrogen into the Rocky River than the previous two polluting plants combined. Measures to limit further damage to Loves Creek, the Rocky River and the Deep and Cape Fear Rivers and to begin monitoring downstream need to occur immediately rather than four years from now. Further restrictions on untreated nitrogen discharge from the Mountaire plant need to be in place. The DWR acknowledges that the Draft Modification of the permit would not meet water quality standards. It is a fact that Siler City Wastewater Treatment Plant cannot treat the nitrogen in Mountaire’s waste stream. Mountaire should be required to remove total nitrogen from its wastes before discharging to the Siler City Wastewater Plant. Strict parameters should be set for the safety of our waters. League of Women Voters of Orange, Durham, And Chatham Counties League of Women Voters of the Lower Cape Fear Media Contact: Clarice Reber, Secretary and Environmental Action Team Leader, League of Women Voters of the Lower Cape Fear at 910-319-6335 Carol Roberts, President, League of Women Voters of the Lower Cape Fear, at 910-547-6161 Mary Ellen Cole, Communications Director, League of Women Voters of the Lower Cape Fear, at 703-618-6196 |
AuthorLeague of Women Voters of the Lower Cape Fear serves Brunswick, New Hanover, and Pender Counties. Archives
June 2019
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