WASHINGTON, D. C. — A broad coalition of civil rights and good government organizations today called on Congress to take urgent legislative action to stop state efforts to weaponize the census and redistricting processes against Black, Latino, immigrant, and other historically marginalized communities.

In a letter sent to the leadership of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, the House Oversight Committee, and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, more than 33 organizations demanded oversight and legislative safeguards. Organized by Democracy Defenders Action and Black Voters Matter, the letter outlines a growing campaign of partisan manipulation designed to rig electoral outcomes, entrench white political power, and suppress the voices of an increasingly diverse electorate.

“The right to vote and to equal representation are not abstract ideals. They are constitutional guarantees fundamental to our democracy,” said Diamond Brown, senior policy counsel at Democracy Defenders Action. “Through generations of struggle and advocacy, we have worked to make those guarantees real, expanding access to the ballot and enhancing representation. Now, extremists seek to undo that progress by suppressing the voices of communities they are bound by law to represent.”

The letter cites alarming trends in Texas, Florida, and North Carolina, where state lawmakers are advancing aggressively gerrymandered and racially discriminatory maps under the guise of political strategy. It also condemns President Trump’s unprecedented call to exclude or deliberately undercount immigrants and other marginalized communities, violating more than two centuries of precedent and threatening fair representation.

“This is not a series of isolated events,” the letter states. “What we are facing is a deliberate campaign to manipulate two of the most fundamental pillars of our democracy. If left unchecked, these measures will distort representation for decades, stripping communities of their voices in government and the resources they are entitled to under the law.”

The coalition urges Congress to take immediate action, including launching investigations and holding public hearings on state-level abuses, rejecting efforts to exclude noncitizens from the census, passing key legislation, including the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and opposing the SAVE Act, which would impose harmful new voting restrictions.

“The census and redistricting are not just bureaucratic exercises — they are constitutional mandates that shape political power and access to billions in federal resources,” said Rhyane Wagner, senior policy manager at Black Voters Matter. “Congress has both the authority and the duty to intervene and stop this coordinated assault on marginalized, predominantly Black communities, and on democracy itself.”

Read the letter HERE

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Democracy Defenders Action brings together a nonpartisan team to work with national, state and local allies across the country committed to upholding the rule of law, fighting against autocracy and defending the Constitution.