The office of Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, issued a blistering statement condemning members of Congress who supported racist comments against him.
Tuesday’s statement came a day after U.S. Rep. Jen Quiggans appeared on a conservative radio talk show to discuss the state’s ongoing redistricting battles.
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During the show, host Rich Herrera criticized Jeffries, a New York native, for supporting efforts to redraw Virginia’s congressional maps.
Herrera said Jeffries should either move to Virginia and run for office or “leave Virginia as a cotton picker.”
“That’s right. Ditto,” replied Mr. Quiggans, a Republican. “Yes. That’s right.”
The term “cotton picker” is usually considered to have racist roots in the United States, where enslaved black people were used as labor on southern cotton plantations until the mid-19th century.
Mr. Quiggans later denied endorsing Mr. Herrera’s statement. Rather, she argued that she agreed with widespread sentiment about Democratic efforts to redistrict the state.
“Radio hosts shouldn’t have used that word and I didn’t condone it and I don’t condone it,” she said.
“It was clear to anyone listening that I agreed to keep Hakeem Jeffries away from Virginia.”
Still, Jeffries spokeswoman Christy Stevenson slammed Quiggans on Tuesday.
“Extremists who espouse disgusting, vile, racist language are pathetic,” Stevenson said.
“Jen Quiggans has no interest in our country’s progress toward multiracial democracy and seems to long for a return to the days of Jim Crow racial oppression in the South.”
Democratic leaders, including U.S. Minority Leader Katherine Clark and California Governor Gavin Newsom, have called on Quiggans to resign.
The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) also posted a clip of the radio exchange on social media platform X, writing, “Did she agree with him? Yes. Is this racist? Yes. Should she resign? That too.”
The radio interview came after US President Donald Trump posted a racist video in February that depicted former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as primates.
Tim Scott, the only black Republican senator in the United States, denounced the video as “the most racist thing I’ve ever seen.” The video was later deleted, and the White House accused staffers of posting it to President Trump’s account.
The incident comes amid a nationwide battle over redistricting ahead of the crucial midterm elections in November.
States typically redraw their electoral maps once every 10 years to reflect the most recent census results. But last year, the Trump administration asked the Texas Legislature to pass a new congressional map that would boost Republicans in the polls.
Since then, several states have tried to redraw the map to benefit one party or the other.
In Virginia, voters approved a redraw of the state’s map in April that would add more Democratic-leaning districts. However, the state Supreme Court later invalidated the map. Democrats petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.
Partisan gerrymandering, or the manipulation of electoral maps for political purposes, is not illegal under U.S. law. But critics have denounced the practice as undemocratic.
However, discrimination based on race is illegal in the United States, and laws such as the Voting Rights Act of 1973 have been used to ensure fair representation at voting places.
However, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in late April weakened how the law would be enforced. The high court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, making it easier to divide black-majority congressional districts except in cases of clearly racist motives.
Civil rights groups say such a motive is nearly impossible to prove. They also argue that the ruling could be used to weaken the voting power of Black Americans, who have historically skewed the Democratic Party.
Republican lawmakers in Tennessee, Florida, Alabama and South Carolina are working to redraw their maps in light of the ruling.
