Victory Fund has a new game plan to grow LGBTQ representation: redistricting efforts

Victory Fund National Champagne Brunch, Washington, DC USA With Virginia Delegate Danica Roem, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and US Senator Tammy Duckworth
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Redistricting, like judicial appointments, is one of those things that only political junkies seem to care about. But drawing up legislative district maps based on census data is not just an exercise in back-room wonkiness. Redistricting affects who can get elected and what they are likely to do once in office.

That’s why the LGBTQ Victory Fund has undertaken a lobbying effort to increase the community’s political clout through redistricting. The effort, named “We Belong Together,” aims to ensure that neighborhoods where there are large populations of LGBTQ people remain concentrated in single districts.

Related: Mississippi is the only state without an out LGBTQ elected official now

“The drawing of district lines is enormously consequential to LGBTQ representation, yet historically our community has been largely absent from discussions on redistricting,” said Annise Parker, the President & CEO of the Victory Fund.

“A line drawn in the middle of a neighborhood with a large LGBTQ population – or even a line drawn to cut off a corner of that neighborhood – can be the difference between electing an LGBTQ person or having zero LGBTQ representation.”

Increasing the number of LGBTQ elected officials has been the goal of the Victory Fund since it was founded 20 years ago, so it makes sense that the group is trying to influence the maps…

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