Pamela Cruz. Peninsula 360 Press [P360P].

The drawing of electoral districts, which takes place every 10 years, will be key to the adequate representation of minority voters in the future, a situation that could be affected by the 2020 census, which was heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, experts said.

Because the ten-year state redistricting survey data is delayed due to pandemic-related disruptions and closures, and minorities will feel the results.

But what is the risk?

"The risk is that you end up not having communities of color adequately represented in Congress, in state legislatures, and that then leads to different agendas being pursued within those policymaking bodies," said Thomas A. Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund-MALDEF.

During a briefing held by Ethnic Media ServicesAs the country becomes more partisan and polarized, the expert said, there will be close elections in the House and Senate.

"If we fail to create majority-minority districts where justified by the Voting Rights Act, there will not be adequate representation," he said.

He recalled that in majority-minority districts, racial or ethnic communities constitute a large enough portion of the electorate to ensure that the community can elect the candidate of their choice regardless of race.

Redistricting

Redistricting specifies who lives in each district, and of those, who runs for public office in order to respond to the needs of the community on issues such as safety or housing and immigration policies, but this requires a census.

Thus, the census has two explicit purposes, he said. One is to count every inhabitant of the country to reallocate the 435 seats in the House of Representatives among the states, according to their population, and the other is to redistrict not only for Congress, but also for state legislatures and local bodies such as city councils, county boards, boards of education, community college boards, among other bodies.

In that sense, the results of the census make it possible to determine the reallocation of 1.5 billion dollars a year in federal funds to the states for services such as hospitals, schools and others.

In 2020, the situation was turbulent, on the one hand, the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and on the other, the Donald Trump administration's attempts to include a citizenship question and create a database that would exclude undocumented people.

That action was unsuccessful, but it set a pattern where Republicans have tried to equalize the redistricting database based on voting age population rather than overall total.

"That would have a devastating effect on communities of color for two reasons. First, because particularly Latino and Asian-American communities have higher proportions of non-citizens ... (Second), because it would exclude all people under the age of 18 ... and all communities of color have higher proportions under 18 than white populations," Saenz said.

The expert said that according to projections, Texas and Florida could gain more than one seat when the official census count is delivered, while California could lose a seat in the House of Representatives, which could mark a milestone for that state.

To know the outlines and where redistricting is going, he said, we'll have to wait until the end of April.

He also recalled that, in the last 10 years, Texas gained four seats in the House of Representatives thanks to population growth, where 80 percent belonged to communities of color. However, none of the seats went to minority communities.

For LMU Loyola law professor Justin Levitt, in some local jurisdictions there is not a partisan fight, but a titular fight against the minority communities that are emerging in that local jurisdiction, when it is in their interest to preserve their own power.

He explained that, in 2013, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which required some states and localities to obtain federal preclearance before they could implement redistricting plans.

Without such oversight, redistricting could diminish the ability of African American, Latino, Asian American, Native American and other minority voters to participate.

The Voting Rights Act also has a provision to attack convertible redistricting plans.

Despite COVID-19 restrictions, U.S. shootings continue. 2021 could surpass last year's violence. 

Pamela Cruz. Peninsula 360 Press [P360P].

The recent shooting in Orange County, California, which left four people dead, including a 9-year-old boy who died in a woman's arms, adds to the chilling toll these acts have taken on the U.S. despite a COVID-19 pandemic.

Originally from the city of Fullerton, 44-year-old Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez was responsible for the massacre that took place on Wednesday where he murdered four people in cold blood, which, according to authorities, were not random.

Thus, the Fullerton Police Department stressed that the terrible events that occurred in an Orange office lot were premeditated, as the attacker locked the gates of the complex with bicycle cable locks and was armed with a gun, as well as pepper spray and handcuffs.

They also detailed that the perpetrator of the massacre, who is in critical condition in the hospital, as he was injured after the intervention of the police, was connected to the victims through business and personal ties.

Orange Police Department Lt. Jennifer Amat said that after a call came in around 5:30 p.m. reporting shots fired at a business in the 200 block of West Lincoln Avenue, officers went to the scene and after finding the doors locked, they had to open fire, which wounded the assailant.

After the shooting, police were able to cut the cable locks with special pliers to enter the compound. In the courtyard, they found a 9-year-old boy dead and a woman - who remains in a hospital in critical condition - and who hugged the little boy, it is believed, in order to save him from the bullets.

In addition, police also found three additional bodies in other spaces: a woman upstairs, a man inside an office and a woman in a different room, all shot to death.

It should be noted that the Orange Police Department is conducting the investigation into the terrible act in order to send the reports to the District Attorney's office. The perpetrator of the massacre could receive capital punishment if it is requested for this case.

The incident has become the third mass shooting in the country in the last two weeks.

According to the Armed Violence Archive, as of March 30, there were 119 mass shootings and 8 mass murders.

The number of people killed in the country due to a weapon reached, until two days ago, 10,580, of which 4,574 were due to homicide, murder or unintentional.

2021 could surpass last year's numbers

The mounting attacks suggest that this year could surpass the chilling figures recorded in 2020, which became the most violent year for guns in decades.

The Gun Violence Archive noted in its annual report that there were 43,535 gun-related deaths in the U.S. in 2020. 19,379 of those deaths were homicide, murder or unintentional, while 24,156 of them were due to suicide.

The report, released March 24, details that during the past year, in which the COVID-19 pandemic began, 611 mass shootings and 21 mass murders were reported.

The number of children aged 0-11 years who were injured by a firearm was 697, which means that 1.9 children, daily, were victims of these devices in 2020. Meanwhile, 299 were in delicate condition.

In the case of adolescents - 12 to 17 years old - the situation did not improve, since 3,061 were wounded by a weapon, 1,073 were in delicate conditions. In that sense, 8.4 young people were affected daily during one of the deadliest years in all senses.

From January 1 to March 25, 2021, the organization has registered 9,762 deaths by armed violence, 4,218 by homicide, murder or unintentional, while 5,544 have been by suicide, which reflects that the problem already marks a trend.

Thus, during the first three months of the year, 106 mass shootings and six mass murders have already been reported.

Statistics show that from 2014 to 2020, the number of gun deaths increased by 352 percent. While from 2019 to 2020 there was a rise of just under 10 percent.

And is that in 2014 there were 12 thousand 355 deaths by weapons; in 2015 there were 13 thousand 572; in 2016, 15 thousand 122; by 2017 they reached 15 thousand 718; in 2018 they dropped to 14 thousand 885; and in 2019 it reached the terrible figure of 39 thousand 532.

Joe Biden and the debate over gun use in the U.S.

According to a recent Ipsos poll of more than 500 Americans, 57 percent disapproved of President Joseph Biden's handling of gun violence in the wake of shootings across the U.S.

The survey found that two-thirds of respondents believe that reducing gun violence should be a higher priority than protecting the right to own a wide variety of weapons.

Also, by a two-to-one margin, more Americans say enacting new laws to try to reduce gun violence is the top priority right now.

In this regard, the document notes that "there is widespread agreement on this issue, with Americans of all ages, educational levels, racial or ethnic backgrounds, and from all regions.

However, he explains that just over one in three Republicans (36 percent) believe enacting new laws is the priority. Instead, 64 percent say protecting the right to own a wide variety of guns should be more important.

Here, too, there is a significant partisan divide, with more than nine out of ten Democrats in favor of enacting new laws to reduce gun violence.