Alabama's congressional map is struck down again for diluting Black voters' power
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A panel of three federal judges has struck down Alabama's latest map of congressional election districts for not following a court order to comply with the landmark Voting Rights Act.
In an order released Tuesday , the judges said they are "deeply troubled that the State enacted a map that the State readily admits does not provide the remedy we said federal law requires."
"We are not aware of any other case in which a state legislature — faced with a federal court order declaring that its electoral plan unlawfully dilutes minority votes and requiring a plan that provides an additional opportunity district — responded with a plan that the state concedes does not provide that district," said U.S. Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus, U.S. District Judge Anna Manasco and U.S. District Judge Terry Moorer. "The law requires the creation of an additional district that affords Black Alabamians, like everyone else, a fair and reasonable opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. The 2023 Plan plainly fails to do so."
For the 2024 elections, the judges have assigned court-appointed experts to draw three potential maps that each include two districts where Black voters have a realistic opportunity of electing their preferred candidate. Those redistricting proposals are due to the court by Sept. 25.
All sides in this case will be able to challenge the proposals produced by the court's "special master" and cartographer, the judges have said . A hearing on any objections is tentatively set for Oct. 3.
And the state of Alabama has previously signaled in court filings it would appeal this kind of ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, where a majority of justices upheld the panel's order in June.
The panel's latest ruling is part of a long-running legal fight over a redistricting plan that could help change the balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives after next year's elections.
Before reviewing the congressional map passed by Alabama's Republican-controlled legislature in July, the three judges threw out an earlier redistricting plan approved by state lawmakers after finding that it likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by diluting the power of Alabama's Black voters.
Out of the state's seven congressional voting districts, that plan included only one opportunity district for Black voters in a state where Black people make up more than a quarter of the state's residents.
The judges ordered instead a new map with two opportunity districts for Black voters, and Black Alabamians, they noted, would need to make up the majority of the voting-age population or "something quite close to it" in each of those districts, given how racially polarized voting is in the state.
The state is facing a looming logistical deadline for next year's races. Alabama's top election official — Secretary of State Wes Allen, a Republican — has told the court that finalizing a redistricting plan by around Oct. 1 "would provide enough time to reassign voters, print and distribute ballots, and otherwise conduct the forthcoming 2024 primary elections based on the new map."
The legal battle over Alabama's congressional districts is expected to continue with a court trial about the map that will be used for the 2026 elections.
Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill would have had a field day songwriting.
The Alabama state leg thumbed their noses at those judges. Sure wish there was a fine for something like that. Sounds like contempt of court but I'm not an attorney
Contempt is their raison d'être.
They are thumbing their noses at SCOTUS who ordered this to be done.
Thank you for the correction
Tuberville is the Senator from Alabama and to him, white supremacists are good Americans.
That seems to be the mindset of political set in Alabama.
But...but...but...there are no white supremacists in America!
did a significant portion of inbred white trash just move away from arkansas?
Yes, although once a dangerous invasive alien species in all of the Americas, the Crimson Naped Shit Stomper is now Indigenous to all of the Southern United States and can so sometimes now be found as far North as Canada...
A judge in Florida just threw out DeSantis redistricting as against the Florida constitution. Seems they guys are talking to each other to dilute minority votes.
rwnj efforts towards legislated voter suppression is aimed at keeping minorities and the working poor from voting.
All three of these Federal judges are Repubs, two appointed by Trump.
are they serving in the alabama legislature too?
So, what's your point?
No point, just information that might surprise some here.
Apparently not, what confused you?
only for the last 160 years...
Black Alabamans deserve and must have equal representation. Since there is no excuse to deny them their rights any scheme to deny them those rights is illegal and unconstitutional in the USA!
That's the only way those scum can win is by lying, cheating, and stealing, and general thuggishness.
What rights are they being denied? Voter suppression is another left wing lie
You have no argument to make about it. So just 'hurl' something—anything and may be it will fool somebody—anybody. Minorities will not lose rights and privileges immediately because some conservatives' actions towards "Katy barring the door" is not being left to stand by reasonable conservatives.
And that is telling. Some conservatives can even be so shockingly alienating that other conservatives are given pause and beg to differ.
I don't think this was a case of rights being denied. The way I read the court review, this was found to be illegal because it appears to be based on race as it diluted the black vote.
The Republicans will do whatever they possibly can to make sure they get the majority votes, no matter how illegal it is and no matter who they fuck to do it. It's an example to the rest of the world of what America is trying to sell (or force) around the world.
Gerrymandering by itself is not illegal. In this case the court felt it was done based on race, which is illegal. Both the Republican and the Democrat party gerrymander when they are in power when it's time to redraw the maps after the census. And of course, it's done to get the majority votes. That's what political parties want to do to insure they stay in power. To call out only one party for doing this is highly partisan in nature.
I suppose you're right, both parties probably do whatever it takes, legal or not, to secure as many votes as they can. I guess I just hear about it happening a lot more by the Republicans than by the Democrats, but then that may be because one cannot believe what the media posts or omits any more. Maybe people should just give up watching or reading the news these days.
NO, not right. It the old song and dance about what comes first the chicken or the egg. These two parties KNOW EACH OTHER LIKE TWO OLD 'frenemies' - for life. Thus, they have been in fierce competition (as the 'only games in town') for decades upon decades and the GAME gets 'wickedly clever' on both sides such that it is. . . complicated, and difficult to see where the all-consuming FIRST strikes that set off chains of events derive.
But know this. Look at who takes the LATEST 'shots' at the other party. Watch as the Lincoln Project (a cache of republicans) seeks to take down its own, because they have been tossed aside by this REGIME/OCCUPYING FORCE. Watch as republicans attempt to withstand the courts to its face! This is a republican version of something President Andrew Jackson is said to have said about a Supreme Court decision he did not like and did not intend to execute: 'The Supreme Court has issued its DECISION, now let's see if they can ENFORCE IT.' The Alabama legislature may be setting up to require the courts to 'make them' - 'execute' its decisions.
They are a 'best' clue as to who is in the wrong at this moment in time.
Republicans have party officials and members who 'hate' and are seeking to end/destroy the Occupiers of their party. Democrats. . . have not sunk that low. . . yet.