WASHINGTON (CN) - Boosting Republicans' redistricting push, the Supreme Court on Tuesday night revived an Alabama congressional map ruled to be racially discriminatory.
State lawmakers pushed to reinstate the 2023 map after the high court's recent landmark voting rights ruling. Alabama said the decision vindicated the lawfulness of the plan, arguing voters shouldn't be forced to vote under a court-drawn map that doesn't meet the state's districting goals.
Alabama's 2024 election was held under districts drawn by a special master over the yearslong litigation over representation for Black voters. Black Alabamians make up 27% of the state's voting-age population but only represent the majority in one of seven of the state's congressional districts. Alabama lawmakers have been fighting adding a second majority-Black district for the better part of five years.
In 2021, voters and civil rights groups challenged the state's newly enacted congressional map for spreading Black voters in southern Alabama across three congressional districts. They argued the map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act - which bars racial discrimination in voting - by leaving Black voters in the minority across each new district.
The Supreme Court found the map unlawful in 2023, ordering lawmakers to redraw the districts to include additional opportunity districts for Black voters to elect their candidates of choice. But Republican leadership refused to comply, implementing the 2023 maps at the center of the current litigation.
A panel held a second time that the 2023 maps did not give enough representation to Black Alabamians, blocking their use. Alabama asked the Supreme Court to halt a court-mandated redraw of its maps, but the justices refused to do so at the time.
Last year, a federal panel held the Legislature intentionally discriminated against Black voters in its 2023 maps by deliberately enacting a plan it knew did not comply with prior court orders and Voting Rights Act standards.
The panel ordered the state to continue using a previously ordered remedial plan and scheduled further proceedings to consider placing the state under federal preclearance guidelines that were only lifted in 2020.
After the Supreme Court's blockbuster ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, Republicans filed a flurry of emergency appeals to implement the 2023 map for upcoming elections. The justices cleared the way for its use, but a federal three-judge panel ruled there was no clear way for Alabamians to vote "under a districting plan tainted by intentional race-based discrimination."
Governor Kay Ivey canceled primary elections scheduled to begin May 19. He subsequently called for special primaries on Aug. 11 in four districts.
State lawmakers said the justices needed to act by June 1, but voters and civil rights groups insisted the emergency appeal was already too late. June 1 is an official state holiday commemorating Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
Source: Courthouse News Service
