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WASHINGTON A top Senate official ruled on Monday that Democrats could use the fast-track budget reconciliation process for a second time this fiscal year, potentially handing them broader power to push through President Bidens agenda, including his infrastructure plan, over Republican opposition.

The decision by the parliamentarian means that Democrats can essentially reopen the budget plan they passed in February and add directives to enact the infrastructure package or other initiatives, shielding them from a filibuster that requires 60 votes to overcome.

It came as Democratic leaders were contemplating how to use their slim majorities in the House and Senate to enact Mr. Bidens infrastructure proposals, including a huge public-works plan he released last week and a second initiative to be released in the coming months to address economic inequities, provide paid leave to workers and support child care.

But the decision has potential significance beyond those plans, and even the current Congress. The guidance could substantially weaken the filibuster by allowing the majority party to use budget reconciliation a powerful tool that allows measures related to taxes and spending to pass on a majority vote multiple times in a single fiscal year. That would dilute the power of the minority to stall or block such legislation in the Senate, the latest bid by the party in power to chip away at the arcane filibuster rules.

It was not clear how Democrats would use their newfound power, or for what. But the preliminary guidance from Elizabeth MacDonough, the parliamentarian, most likely gives them additional opportunities to push elements of Mr. Bidens agenda through the 50-to-50 Senate without abolishing the filibuster or watering down their proposals to win at least 10 Republican votes.

Democrats had already used budget reconciliation to push through Mr. Bidens $1.9 trillion stimulus last month without any Republican votes. But with some Democrats reluctant to dismantle the filibuster, the rest of Mr. Bidens agenda risks stalling amid Republican objections.

Seeking alternative avenues, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, had argued that the rules allowed the Senate to revisit the budget blueprint that allowed for passage of the pandemic relief plan and take at least one more crack at reconciliation before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.

Because there was no precedent for doing so, he asked Ms. MacDonough, a nonpartisan civil servant who interprets Senate rules, for guidance. On Monday, she blessed the maneuver, according to Justin Goodman, a spokesman for Mr. Schumer, who said that some parameters still need to be worked out.

The ruling allows Democrats additional tools to improve the lives of Americans if Republican obstruction continues, Mr. Goodman said in a statement, calling the opinion an important step forward in ensuring that this key pathway is available to Democrats if needed.

Democrats already had two more opportunities to use the reconciliation process during the 117th Congress, under budget blueprints for fiscal years 2022 and 2023. But the ruling from Ms. MacDonough allows them to use the maneuver at least two more times during this calendar year alone, and could further increase the opportunities for them to do so before the end of 2022.

The option does not guarantee a smooth path for Mr. Bidens agenda; with narrow majorities in both chambers, party leaders will have to keep Democrats almost entirely united to be able to use the maneuver successfully. And reconciliation is subject to strict budgetary rules that limit what can be included.

Top Democratic officials have declined to say when they will use the budget tool again. But lawmakers and aides have floated a number of possibilities, ranging from infrastructure to immigration, that could be steered around Republican objections and into law.

Its important because it gives us a little more flexibility we dont have to push everything into one package, Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who is chairman of the Budget Committee, said on MSNBC, listing a number of priorities he wanted to pass. The ruling of the parliamentarian gives us a little bit more opportunity in that direction.

Progressive lawmakers have increasingly agitated for a change to the rules of the Senate that would allow the party to dismantle the filibuster.

But any effort to pass further legislation with a simple majority will be considerably more difficult than it was with the stimulus package, which cleared both chambers and became law in less than three months. Democrats are already haggling over what should be included in the infrastructure plan, and how to pay for it.

Republicans, who have largely criticized Mr. Bidens agenda, are likely to object to any use of the tool, which would virtually cut them out of the process. Reconciliation also consumes a substantial amount of floor time, which could otherwise be used for approving administration nominees and judicial appointments.

There are more opportunities to run the obstacle course and risk all the dangers, but you still have to run the obstacle course, said Zach Moller, deputy director of the economic program at Third Way, a left-leaning think tank in Washington, and a former aide on the Senate Budget Committee. The process and the painfulness of budget reconciliation is still required to go through here.

Several Democrats have said they hope for bipartisan support for their initiatives, including Mr. Bidens infrastructure proposal. But taking a cue from the president, they have also begun to argue that they have support from Republican voters and local officials, even if Republican lawmakers in Washington have objected to the plan.

Some Republicans balked at Mr. Schumers parsing of budgetary law, saying it suggested that congressional Democrats had no genuine interest in negotiating the details of an infrastructure plan, let alone more politically charged issues like immigration reform.

It should be subjected to extensive hearings in both the House and the Senate, and not rammed through, Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said of the infrastructure package in an interview last week. But the attempt to expand the use of reconciliation, she said, seems to signal what direction they want to go in.

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Democrats Win Crucial Tool to Enact Bidens Plans, Including Infrastructure - The New York Times

The Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, Va. (Bob Brown / Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP, Pool)

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The Democratic Partys post-Trump revival began in Virginia in 2017. Thats when a state, local and national backlash against the racist demagogue helped the party win the top three racesgovernor, lieutenant governor, and attorney generaland 15 House of Delegate seats, missing taking the majority by a tie in one district, which got settled by selecting the name of the winner, a Republican, from a ceramic bowl. Democrats then took the majority of Virginias House of Representatives delegation in 2018, and won control of the state General Assembly, both the House of Delegates and the state Senate, in 2019.

But to paraphrase the old rap song: more incumbents, more problems. Now some Virginia Democrats are in a circular firing squad, with progressive party insurgents blasting the establishment. Last week the state Board of Elections, chaired by a Democrat, disqualified three House of Delegates candidates who were challenging Democratic incumbents, for various problems with filing campaign paperwork. All three happen to be Black. The state NAACP quickly spoke out against the appearance of disparate treatment of candidates of colorwho sought to challenge incumbent legislators.

The three challengersRichmond City Council member Dr. Michael Jones, Arlington legislative aide and activist Matt Rogers, and Dumfries Town Council member Cydny Neville, from Prince William Countycome from different corners of the Commonwealth and different backgrounds. Their paperwork problems are different, tooand tedious, as such problems always are. But the state board has routinely granted candidates extensions to solve such problemsat least eight got them in 2020, including GOP congressional candidates Delegate Nick Freitas (who lost) and Bob Good (who won). State law provides for a 10-day grace period at the boards discretion.

While exercising that discretion last year, chair Bob Brink called disqualifying candidates over paperwork errors a draconian move. Doing that would run counter to my personal belief that, as much as possible, we ought to permit access to the ballot and let the voters decide, Brink told The Roanoke Times. The board is between a rock and the hard place. We dont want to be in the position of picking and choosing winners and losers. Thats the voters job. To be fair, Brink also complained that by granting the extensions the board was giving a pass to the scofflaws at the expense of the candidates who followed the rules.Related Article

But this year, the first time in ages that state Democrats are defending majorities in the General Assembly, the board suddenly made candidates paperwork troubles a capital offense, with no grace period to fix them. Im not gonna lie, Jones told me; if flawed paperwork normally doomed candidates, hed go back to his life as a Richmond pastor and City Council member and take the L. But granting extensions was their practice. They change the rules in the middle of a pandemic? The NAACP has asked the board to proceed with extensions in the same manner it has consistently done in the past, but theres no evidence the decision will be reconsidered.

With five years on the City Council and 20 as a Richmond pastor, Jones perhaps posed the greatest political threat, challenging longtime incumbent Delegate Betsy Carr, who is white. Jones compares Virginia Democratic Party politics to the bloody HBO series Game of Thrones, and jokes hed be cast as Slayer of Monuments for his work getting Confederate statues removed in Richmond and around the state. He has also been a strong voice for criminal justice and police reform.

Two hours north of Richmond, in heavily Democratic Arlington, if my dog got the Democratic nomination, he would win, says Matt Rogers. Former chief of staff to moderate state Senator David Marsden, Rogers is well to the left of his old boss, as well as the incumbent he seeks to replace, Delegate Patrick Hope. Over the last few cycles, hes worked alongside 90for90.org, the group committed to recruiting Democrats in every Virginia legislative district (which is less popular with the Democratic establishment than you might expect).Current Issue

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Rogers backs Medicare for All and cannabis legalization, and hes long opposed the death penalty (Governor Ralph Northam recently signed legislation abolishing it). He knew he was facing headwinds in his districtMarsden made clear he would back Hope, a centrist allybut says his team has already knocked 90 percent of the doors of Democratic voters in his district. The state boards decision not to give the three Black challengers time to address paperwork complaints routinely granted to others utterly threw him. The fix was in, he says, with some bitterness. One painful irony: Two years ago, the board granted his intended opponent, incumbent Hope, a grace period to fix his own filing problems.

How does the state board explain its decision this year? Brink, himself a former Virginia delegate, sent a letter in January to the states Republican and Democratic party leaders saying that there would be no assurance of deadline extensions in 2021, and urged the parties to make sure candidates filed proper papers. In his two years as chair, we were getting repeated requests for extensions, and we felt it put us in a very unfair position, Brink told me. Jones and Rogers say they never heard about problems from party higher-ups (Neville did not respond for this piece). But some candidates did hear from the party, Im told, and were able to take that into account when preparing their paperwork. While Brink shared his letter with the House caucuses for both parties, the caucuses by definition only work with their membersand that means incumbents.

Rogers says the job of informing candidates should never have been offloaded to party leaders, anyway, since they generally work to protect incumbents. How can partisan actors be neutral arbiters here? he asks.

Not many Virginia activists, apart from the NAACP, have spoken out about the disqualifications. One exception is Valerie Slater, executive director of Richmonds RISE for Youth, who called it strange indeed that the candidates have been given the chance to cure such problems in past years. I would like to see fairness for all candidates, she told me. Virginians deserve the right to decide what candidates to support. That opportunity should not be subverted by the Board of Elections.

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That points to what has long been a tension in Virginia Democratic politics and beyond. When I was first writing about the crop of first-time candidates, most of them women, running for the House of Delegates in 2017, I heard fierce complaints that challengers werent getting the help from party leaders they had expected. But party caucuses and other establishment groups tend to be incumbent-protection organizations, focused on shoring up Democrats who were already in the House and Senate and paying less attention to challengers, especially those perceived unlikely to win. What happened in Virginia in 2017 was that progressive outside groupsso-called pop-up organizations from all over the country, fired up by Donald Trumps electionthrew money and volunteers at the candidates whose success was less assured. In the end, 11 of the 15 Democrats who flipped GOP seats were women.

But those women werent challenging Democratic incumbentsmany were sacrificial candidates running to try to plant a blue flag in a red district where no Democrat had run for eons; others were in districts where Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump, where they had a better shot (and where the party ultimately racked up most of its 2017 wins). Now that the party has control of both the Senate and the House of Delegates, protecting incumbents is an even higher priority for the House Democratic Caucus. Helping primary challengers qualify for the ballot isnt part of the job description.

This is a dynamic that plays out elsewhere. As weve seen in Congress, where progressive women of color like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, and Cori Bush won seats in liberal districts by primarying more centrist Democratic incumbents, for women and people of color to make gains, their best shot will tend to be in liberal districts. They can either wait for an open seat or primary an incumbent. As in Virginia, party leaders dont tend to like that approach, with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee prohibiting its candidates from hiring consultants or vendors who work with challengers in the last cycle. (The rule was changed in March.)

How democratic are we really if were just about protecting Democratic incumbents? Jones asks. Younger, progressive candidates of color, he notes, are not typically invited to the smoke-filled, whiskey-filled rooms where historically a lot of these decisions got made. Liberal Arlington, Rogers notes, hasnt sent a Black to the General Assembly since Reconstruction. The three have the option of challenging the boards move in court, but theyll have to do it fast, as officials say they will move quickly to print absentee ballots for the June 8 primaries.

Andrew Whitely, executive director of the Virginia Democratic Party, recognizes that the disqualified challengers feel slighted, given the ease with which filing extensions were granted in prior years, and the confusion over who should have let them know they had paperwork problems. We have to make sure we dont have a replication of this again, Whitely said.

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Are Virginia Democrats Running Progressive Challengers Out of the 2021 Primary? - The Nation

Weve just really been working together, said Rep. Carl Sherman, D-DeSoto. "It was really just about hearing one another, and I think thats missing in politics.

DALLAS State Representative Carl Sherman, Sr. said he thinks politics are dangerously close to the point of no return, with lawmakers on different teams no longer trying to work together for a common good.

So, hes trying to pull politics back from the brink, one meal at a time.

The Dallas County Democrat contacted state Representative Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, and asked him to start having breakfast and lunch together. The Dallas Morning News first reported the friendship that both men nurtured outside the House chamber.

Rep. Sherman said his colleague from across the ideological aisle was more than willing to sit down and get to know one another better. In fact, their friendship has led directly to co-authoring legislation.

Weve just really been working together, Rep. Sherman said on Sundays Inside Texas Politics. From a political perspective, we have joint authored two bills together and Im really excited about that. And that wasnt the aim. It was really just about hearing one another, and I think thats missing in politics.

One of those bills is House Bill 929, also known as The Botham Jean Act or Bos Law, recently introduced in the House.

I am extremely optimistic that the bill will pass, the Democrat said on the television program.

The bill number itself [929] is significant, Sherman explained, as it is actually Botham Jeans birthday.

The young accountant and worship leader was killed in his own home by former Dallas Police Officer Amber Guyger in September 2018.

Guyger claimed she thought she was entering her own apartment at the time when she shot him. She was convicted of murder in 2019 but is currently appealing the verdict.

Under Texas law, the Castle Doctrine allows someone to use deadly force to protect their home, car or business. Guyger's attorneys argued her actions should have been covered under it since she believed she was in her home.

Rep. Sherman said his legislation would strengthen and clarify the Castle Doctrine and make it an offense for police officers to turn off body cameras during an investigation.

It is important to me, it was also important to my joint authors like Matt Krause and Representative Jacey Jetton, both Republicans, that we ensure that law enforcement maintains the integrity that we should have and have the unedited, unredacted full investigation of what actually transpired.

That is critically important, Rep. Sherman said, to strengthening the bond between community and police.

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How a meeting for lunch led to legislation between a Texas Democrat and Republican - WFAA.com

Its bold, yes, and we can get it done. So declared President Joe Biden launching his $2tn plan last week to overhaul US infrastructure ranging from fixing 20,000 miles of roads to remaking bridges, ports, water systems and the care economy, care now defined as part of the countrys infrastructure. Also included is a vast uplift in research spending on eliminating carbon emissions and on artificial intelligence. And up to another $2tn is to follow on childcare, education and healthcare, all hot on the heels of the $1.9tn American Rescue Plan, passed just three weeks ago.

Cumulatively, the scale is head-spinning. Historians and politicians are already comparing the ambition with Roosevelts New Deal or Lyndon Johnsons Great Society programme. In British terms, its as though an incoming Labour government pledged to spend 500bn over the next decade with a focus on left-behind Britain in all its manifestations real commitments to levelling up, racial equity, net zero and becoming a scientific superpower.

Mainstream and left-of-centre Democrats are as incredulous as they are joyful. Bernie Sanders, congratulating Biden, declared that the American Rescue Plan is the most significant legislation for working people that has been passed in decades. It was the moment when Democrats recovered their soul, writes Robert Kuttner, co-editor of the progressive magazine the American Prospect, ending a 45-year embrace of Wall Street neoliberalism. He concludes: I am not especially religious, but I am reminded of my favourite Jewish prayer, the Shehecheyanu, which gives thanks to the Almighty for allowing us to reach this day.

What amazes the party and commentators alike is why a 78-year-old moderate stalwart such as Biden has suddenly become so audacious. After all, he backed Bill Clintons Third Way and was a cheerleader for fiscal responsibility under both him and Barack Obama, when the stock of federal debt was two-thirds of what it is today.

Now, the debt is no longer to be a veto to delivering crucial economic and social aims. If Trump and the Republicans can disregard it in their quest to cut taxes for the super-rich, Democrats can disregard it to give every American child $3,000 a year.

It is not, in truth, a complete disregard. Under pressure from centrist Democrats, the infrastructure proposals over the next 15 years are to be paid for by tax rises, even if in the first stages they are financed by borrowing. Corporation tax will be raised progressively to 28%, a minimum tax is to be levied on all worldwide company profits, along with assaults on tax loopholes and tax havens.

If others have better ideas, says Biden, come forward, but there must be no additional taxing of individual Americans whose income is below $400,000 a year. Its an expansive definition of the middle class, witness to the breadth of the coalition he is building. But even these are tax hikes that Democrats would have shunned a decade ago.

It is high risk, especially given the wafer-thin majorities in both the House of Representatives and Senate. With implacable Republican opposition, it requires a united Democratic party, which Biden is orchestrating with some brilliance, his long years in Washington having taught him how to cut deals, when and with whom. He judiciously pays tribute to Sanders, on the left, for laying the foundations of the programme and flatters a conservative Democrat centrist such as West Virginias Joe Manchin, who insists on tax rises to pay for the infrastructure bill. What will be truly radical is getting the programme into law.

Yet, still: why, and why now? The answer is the man, the people round him, the gift of Donald Trump and, above all, the moment the challenge of recovering from Covid. Bidens roots are working class; beset by personal tragedies, charged by his Catholicism, his politics are driven by a profound empathy for the lot of ordinary people. He may have surrounded himself with superb economists the treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, Cecilia Rouse and Jared Bernstein at the Council of Economic Advisers, Brian Deese at the National Economic Council, Lina Khan at the Federal Trade Commission who are the intellectual driving forces, but he himself will have been influenced as much by the Catholic churchs increasingly radical social policy, represented by Pope Benedict XVIs revision of the famous encyclical Rerum Novarum.

What makes the politics work so well is Trumps legacy in uniting Democrats as never before while dividing Republicans. Biden knows the danger of the midterm elections in 2022, having seen his Democrat predecessors lose control of the Senate, House or both, so introducing gridlock. His bet is that his popular programme, proving that big government works for the mass of Americans, rather than wayward government by tweet, will keep divided Republicans at bay. Better that than betting, like Clinton and Obama, on the merits of fiscal responsibility, which Republicans, if they win power, will torch to serve their own constituency.

But the overriding driver is the pandemic and the way it has exposed the precariousness of many Americans lives. It has re-legitimised the very idea of government: it is government that has procured and delivered mass vaccination and government that is supporting the incomes of ordinary Americans. Unconstrained US capitalism has become too monopolistic; too keen on promoting fortunes for insiders; too neglectful of the interests, incomes and hopes of most of the people. An astute politician, Biden has read the runes and acted to launch a monumental reset. Expect more to come on trade, company and finance reform and the promotion of trade unions.

The chances are he will get his programmes through and they will substantially work. The lessons for the British left are clear. Left firebrands, however good their programmes, may appeal to the party faithful. But it takes a Biden to win elections and then deliver. With that lesson learned, we, too, may one day be able to invoke the Shehecheyanu.

Will Hutton is an Observer columnist

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With Joe Bidens own audacious New Deal, the democratic left rediscovers its soul - The Guardian

Last month, the Census Bureau announced that it won't be delivering data that state lawmakers and redistricting commissions use to redraw legislative districts until the end of September 2021.

Threadgill-Matthews is a board member for her local branch of the Alabama New South Coalition, an organization that works to mobilize Black voters in Alabama. Her concerns come as her home state's neighbor, Georgia, is the center of the national conversation over voting rights after Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed SB 202, which voting rights groups have said would target Black residents and other voters of color in the state.

"If this is enacted in Alabama, you can probably come back and cover the story because I'm going to jail," Threadgill-Matthews told CNN. "I've been thinking of going to Georgia to offer (voters) some water because I feel like it's ridiculous," she said, referring to a provision in the law that makes it illegal to hand out food or water to people standing in line to vote.

Georgia's SB 202 offers a glimpse into how certain laws can reduce voting accessibility for communities of color across the Southeast, some experts say. It also serves as a warning for what could come next. Many advocates currently have their eyes on the chance for decreased transparency due to the possibility of a shorter redistricting process because of the data delay.

"Unfortunately, a pattern we have seen over and over again, is that when incumbents view a community as a threat to their maintenance of political power, they will use their own power to push back against that threat," said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School.

Redistricting data, originally due at the end of 2020, is late due to complications stemming from the coronavirus pandemic as well as the Trump administration's push to exclude undocumented immigrants from being counted.

For Chavi Khanna Koneru, this has everything to do with how much influence the state's Asian American vote will have. As the executive director of North Carolina Asian Americans Together, she works with organizations to increase the political participation of the state's AAPI community.

"The time crunch is going to make everyone use that as a justification for having to move faster and not being as transparent. Because the community has grown, it really does impact our ability to have an impact on who gets elected and what that representation looks like."

The ripple effects

Threadgill-Matthews worries that the delay in redistricting data will lead to voter apathy in some cases.

"Questions about redistricting and not knowing who's going to be the representative or what district voters might be in would cause some apathy. When voters get used to representation from one person they are familiar with it's easy," she said. "If someone got thrown into a district with an unknown candidate or someone that's been in office that's not known to us, that may cause some apathy and some low voter turnout."

However, Alabama state Sen. Linda Coleman Madison is hopeful that voter apathy in the Black community will not be an issue, but she said that above all, she wants an accurate count.

"I don't think a delay will cause further voter apathy. We in the Black community are always concerned with gerrymandering, stacking and packing. My district is 32% White and 65% Black," she said. "When lines were redrawn after the last census I picked up areas that were traditionally White and I've worked to represent all areas fairly and get to know local leaders. I think people are beginning to look at what the person can bring and their commitment to overall good government."

As in the previous decade, Republicans are set to control the redistricting process in Alabama and North Carolina, something that worries Democrats regarding the implications of how maps could be drawn.

Threadgill-Matthews worries splitting up congressional districts in Alabama's "Black Belt" would lead to vote dilution and disruption in relationships between representatives and constituents that have been years in the making.

Black voters in Alabama tend to vote Democratic. And although it hasn't posed a serious long-term threat to the "hegemony of the Republican Party" in the state, there have been repeated concerns with incumbents using "the mechanisms of rules for how ballots are cast and counted ... and drawing lines in order to diminish the voices of groups they disfavor for whatever reason," Levitt, the law professor, said.

Threadgill-Matthews lives in the state's 7th Congressional District, which is 62% Black, with 45% of active voters self-reporting as Black in 2020, according to data from the Alabama secretary of state.

In 2019, federal trials were held over claims that Alabama's 2011 congressional redistricting map packed one-third of the state's African American population into the 7th District, instead of creating two majority African American districts. The current maps remain unchanged and the way in which they will be drawn this time around will greatly impact constituents.

"When it comes to the questions of redistricting, the linking thread, whether it's suffrage restriction, or polling place restrictions, or redistricting questions, what they all come down to are questions of democracy, anti-democracy, and anti-democratic tendencies," said R. Volney Riser, a history professor at the University of West Alabama.

"In American politics, because political partisanship tends to be so closely aligned with race, anything that involves one partisan seeking advantage over another partisan has the potential to introduce race into the equation," Riser added.

In North Carolina, the Asian American and Pacific Islander electorate shares similar concerns over redistricting. Koneru said she has witnessed the rapid increase of the Asian American population in the past decade, which has grown by 154% since 2000.

Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders accounted for 3.5% of the state's electorate in the 2020 elections, according to data provided by non-profit APIA Vote.

This means that close to 88,000 Asian Americans voted in the 2020 general election, Koneru said.

Much of the state's Asian American population are concentrated in three counties that encompass North Carolina's primary metro areas. Koneru says that if districts are drawn fairly, Asian Americans have the potential to sizably impact the vote in these areas.

Despite the growth in Asian American voters, gerrymandering threatens to reduce the political impact they can have.

"We're finally in a place where we have a seat at the table, are getting our voices heard. Politicians or elected officials who aren't happy with that turnout will certainly push for gerrymandered districts," Koneru said.

The Covid-19 pandemic motivated Asian American voters in North Carolina to become more politically engaged to combat the uptick in discrimination, Koneru said. The turnout of the AAPI voting-eligible population in North Carolina in 2020 was 62%, compared to 39% in 2016.

"We talked to a lot of people who were first-time voters, even though they had been registered for a while. It was really about wanting to have their voices heard because discrimination was impacting them economically," Koneru said.

It can be difficult to address redistricting concerns

Not everyone believes that these concerns surrounding redistricting are warranted.

Patrick Ryan, a spokesperson from the office of state Sen. Phil Berger, president pro tempore of the North Carolina General Assembly, issued a statement on behalf of North Carolina Senate Republicans saying that in 2019, "The legislature conducted all map-drawing in a committee room fully open to the public, and the computers used to draw the maps were livestreamed for any and all to observe."

"It's difficult to specifically address anonymous criticisms of a process that hasn't even begun, and it would seem that those lodging complaints are unaware of the widely praised model employed just two years ago," he said.

North Carolina state Sen. Wiley Nickel, a Democrat, disagrees.

"The issue of fair maps is especially important at a time when Asian Americans are facing increased discrimination and xenophobia across the country because of false COVID-19 related claims."

The 2020 election produced a more conservative state Supreme Court that is likely to influence redistricting this time around, Nickel and others fear.

State Sen. Ben Clark has been leading the effort in the Senate's Democratic caucus to monitor the redistricting process and the census data in North Carolina.

"The delay in receiving census data coupled with the adverse impact of extreme partisan gerrymandering should be of great concern to all North Carolinians," he said. "It is my hope that the condensed timeline will not be used as justification to obscure the redistricting process from engaged citizens who deserve an opportunity to choose their representatives, rather than allowing representatives to 'choose their voters.'"

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Democrats fear a delay in redistricting threatens Black and Asian residents in two southern states - CNN