Court Set To Review Whether Alabama Is in Defiance Over Its Congressional Map

Alabama legislators’ attempts to defy the Supreme Court over the creation of a second majority-Black congressional district will face a court hearing in mid-August, during which they will have to make their case that a newly drawn district map, one apparently at odds with the high court’s opinion, abides by the ruling.The new map was drawn in July following the Supreme Court’s June ruling. In the ruling, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the court’s three liberal justices to maintain a lower court ruling that Alabama’s maps violated the Voting Rights Act.In the court’s opinion, Alabama violated the law by drawing only one majority-Black district out of seven, even though Black people constitute more than a quarter of the state’s population. The court ordered Alabama to create a map with a second majority-Black district.In response, Alabama legislators adopted a new map that also has only one majority-Black congressional district. Governor Ivey said that the legislature “knows our state, our people, and our districts better than the federal courts or activist groups.”The new maps appear to have been drawn in order to help the national GOP maintain its narrow majority ahead of the 2024 elections, according to reporting by the Alabama Reflector.“I did hear from Speaker McCarthy,” the map’s state senator sponsor, Steve Livingston, said, according to the Reflector. “It was quite simple. He said, ‘I’m interested in keeping my majority.’ That was basically his conversation.”On August 14, supporters of the new map will have to face a three-judge panel at the federal courthouse at Birmingham and defend their map.Federal judges Stanley Marcus, Anna Manasco, and Terry Moorer, who will oversee the hearing later this month, appear skeptical of the Alabama legislators’ map, saying that litigating the case would be “unprecedented.”“We are not at square one in these cases,” the judges wrote in a filing Wednesday. “Regardless, the Plaintiffs bear the burden to establish that the 2023 Plan does not remedy the likely Section Two violation that this Court found and the Supreme Court affirmed.”Alabama’s original map was found to be in violation of Section Two of the Voting Rights Act, which “prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in one of the language minority groups identified” in the act, according to the Department of Justice.Alabama Democrats, one of the groups that brought the case, have also alleged that the new map is in violation of the 14th Amendment. The August hearing will not address these claims.In a separate but related case, Alabama Democrats argued that the original map violated the 14th Amendment because the map “packs” Black voters into just one majority-minority district, thereby minimizing their influence in bordering districts and the state’s congressional delegation.The case could have implications not only on the representation of Black Alabamians but also on the balance of power in the House in 2025.A second majority-Black district in Alabama would likely add a Democrat to the state’s congressional delegation. With just a four-seat majority in the House, this could chip away at the current House Republican majority.Following the Supreme Court decision, the Cook Political Report rated Alabama’s second congressional district, currently represented by a Republican, as “likely Democrat.”Alongside potential flips for Democrats in some of New York’s districts, like New York’s third, which is represented by Congressman George Santos, and a parallel redistricting case in Louisiana, the case in Alabama could be decisive in the 2024 elections.

Court Set To Review Whether Alabama Is in Defiance Over Its Congressional Map

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