Alabama lawmakers on Friday approved a new congressional map with just one Black-majority district, defying a SCOTUS order.
Lawmakers in the Republican-dominated House and Senate refused to create a second Black-majority congressional district in the state, instead, passing a plan that would increase the percentage of Black voters from about 31 to 40 percent in the state’s 2nd District, according to the Associated Press.
The map was a compromise between plans that had percentages of 42 and 38 percent for the southeast Alabama district. GOP Governor Kay Ivey quickly signed it.
On June 8, in a surprise Supreme Court ruling, justices found the state’s existing map violated a landmark civil rights law by diluting the power of Black voters. The case centered around Alabama’s Republican-controlled Legislature’s attempt to redraw the state’s Congressional voting map, based on the 2020 census.
The state has seven congressional districts, and its voting-age population is about 27 percent Black. The new map maintained a single district in which Black voters made up a majority.
The original argument by Civil Rights leaders over Alabama’s congressional map centered around Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act which bars any voting procedure that “results in a denial or abridgment of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race.”
As amended in 1982, Section 2 now provides that a voting process or requirement that results in the abridgment of the right to vote on account of a voter’s race, color, or language minority status is unlawful, whether or not an intent to discriminate can be proven.
Now, this latest congressional map will have to be approved by a federal court, which will hold a hearing on it next month.
Whichever map the court ultimately approves will have electoral and political implications beyond Alabama, with control of the U.S. House of Representatives hinging on a razor-thin Republican majority and other states facing similar litigation under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, notes the New York Times.
And it is evident that most Black voters in Alabama support Democratic candidates, so a second majority-Black district would likely elect a Democrat. Democrats and multiple voting rights advocates are already up in arms, -planning to challenge the latest plan.
“This is the quintessential definition of noncompliance,” State Representative Chris England, a Democrat representing Tuscaloosa, told Republicans on Friday, in the final hours of a special session that began Monday for the sole purpose of creating a new map.
“I’m ashamed of what we did here this week,” said state Rep. Juandalynn Givan, a Democrat from Birmingham, reports CNBC News. “We’ve chosen to outright, blatantly disobey the law and to further attempt and vote to bury the Voting Rights Act.”
Meanwhile, the district lines are being closely watched by many in Washington, where redistricting battles are playing out in the courts in Alabama, New York, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas and other states that ultimately could decide control of Congress.
