A three-judge panel is blocking Alabama's new congressional map after lawmakers failed to create a second district where Black voters at least came close to comprising a majority, as suggested by the court. The ruling was cheered by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who leads the group Redistricting Foundation. The judges say a special master will be tapped to draw fair districts for the state. Judges had asked the state solicitor general in a hearing if Alabama had ignored their instruction. The court blocked a map last year and said Alabama should have two districts where Black voters comprise a majority or something close to it. Twenty-seven percent of Alabama's residents are Black. The state is expected to appeal the decision.
The Republican-controlled Alabama Legislature hastily drew new lines this summer after the U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld the panel's finding that the map — that had one majority-Black district out of seven in a state where 27% of residents are Black — likely violated the U.S. Voting Rights Act.
In a release from the group Redistricting Foundation, former U.S. Attorney General Holder said…
“This is a significant step toward equal representation for Black Alabamians. The court rightly stepped up and applied the law in order to protect the rights of American citizens in the face of the state’s blatant attempt to diminish those rights in defiance of both this court and the Supreme Court of the United States. What happened in Alabama this summer underscores the necessity for the judiciary to continue to be unwavering in its obligations to enforce the critical protections of the Voting Rights Act in order for justice to ultimately prevail. Other states with pending Section 2 cases should take note and adhere to the Supreme Court’s decision.”
The three-judge panel, in striking down Alabama's map in 2022, said the state should have two districts where Black voters have an opportunity to elect their preferred candidates. Because of racially polarized voting in the state, that map would need to include a second district where Black voters are the majority or "something quite close," the judges wrote.
Alabama lawmakers in July passed a new map that maintained a single majority-Black district and boosted the percentage of Black voters in another district, District 2, from about 30% to almost 40%.
The three judges said they were "deeply troubled" that Alabama lawmakers enacted a map that ignored their finding that the state should have an additional majority-Black district "or an additional district in which Black voters otherwise have an opportunity to elect a representative of their choice."
"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. 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," the judges wrote.
In a hearing, all three judges had pointedly questioned the state's solicitor general about the state's refusal to create a second majority-Black district.
"What I hear you saying is the state of Alabama deliberately chose to disregard our instructions to draw two majority-Black districts or one where minority candidates could be chosen," Judge Terry Moorer said.
The state argued the map complied with the Voting Rights Act and the Supreme Court decision in the case. The state argued that justices did not require the creation of a second majority-Black district if doing so would mean violating traditional redistricting principles, such as keeping communities of interest together.
"District 2 is as close as you are going to get to a second majority-Black district without violating the Supreme Court's decision," Alabama Solicitor General Edmund LaCour replied to Moorer.
Abha Khanna, an attorney representing one group of plaintiffs in the case, argued during the hearing that Alabama chose "defiance over compliance" and urged the judges to reject the state's map.
"Alabama has chosen instead to thumb its nose at this court and to thumb its nose at the nation's highest court and to thumb its nose at its own Black citizens," Khanna said.
