- The Supreme Court gave state lawmakers until Friday to adopt a new congressional map.
- The new map must include a second majority black district in a state that is 27% black.
- However, the GOP proposed separate ideas that did not conform to the Supreme Court’s order, showing an unwillingness to increase sufficient black voting power.
Alabama lawmakers faced a Friday deadline to draw a new congressional district that would give black voters a bigger voice, but have shown little willingness to create a district with as many black voters as the courts have suggested.
The Republican-controlled state House and Senate were scheduled to meet Friday and could reach a deal to increase the share of black voters in southeast Alabama’s 2nd District. Experts say the two current GOP proposals fall short of what the Supreme Court said last month the law requires.
Neither plan comes close to creating a majority black second district in a state that is 27 percent black. Both plans preserve the 7th District’s current black majority.
A top GOP lawmaker said the Senate proposal puts more emphasis on the shape of a district and keeping communities together than on racial makeup.
ALABAMA GOP CRITICIZED FOR REJECTING SUPREME COURT ORDER TO CREATE MAJORITY BLACK 2ND DISTRICT
The debate in Alabama is being watched closely across the country and could be reflected in fights in Louisiana, Georgia, Texas and other states.
A three-judge panel ruled in 2022 that the current legislative map likely violates the federal Voting Rights Act and said any map would have to include two districts where “black voters comprise a voting age majority or something very close.” The Supreme Court upheld this decision.
“I think this is another good example, maybe the latest and maybe the most blatant, of a legislature that didn’t want to take the floor,” said Kareem Crayton, senior director of voting and representation at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice.
“They’ve pretended like the court didn’t say what it said,” Crayton said.
An Alabama Senate committee discusses a proposal to draw new congressional district lines July 20, 2023, in Montgomery. (AP Photo/Kim Chandler)
The Brennan Center filed a brief in support of the plaintiffs before the Supreme Court.
An analysis by The Associated Press, using redistricting software, showed that the 2nd District held by state senators, with a black voting-age population of 38 percent, has been routinely and handily won by Republicans in recent elections. The House proposal, with a black voting-age population of 42 percent, is narrowly split between Democrats and Republicans, but could still close the preferences of black voters.
The plaintiffs who won the Supreme Court case have vowed to fight either proposal if it passes. They say it’s crucial that blacks get more representation in Alabama and other states to make their votes count.
One issue has been whether the Mobile and Dothan areas were split to add their black voters to a second black-dominated district, as proposed by those suing Alabama.
Senate President Pro Tem Greg Reed, R-Jasper, said Thursday that the Senate plan focuses more on keeping communities together and keeping districts as compact as possible, and less on the black voting-age population.
ALABAMA REPUBLICANS REJECT PROPOSAL TO CREATE MAJORITY BLACK 2ND DISTRICT DESPITE SUPREME COURT RULING
“How do we keep these communities together, how do they end up being recognized as communities of interest? This is a big decision,” Reed said.
Reed said the House map, with 42 percent black voters in a second district, is probably as high as lawmakers are willing to go. He said Friday that the House and Senate would seek an agreement in a conference committee, which would try to reconcile differences in each plan.
But those who study redistricting say it’s simply not enough, given how sharply Alabama voters are divided along racial lines.
“I would think at 38 or 42 that the court is not going to pass,” said Charles Bullock, a political scientist at the University of Georgia who wrote a book on redistricting. He predicted the three-judge panel will end up drawing its own map.
Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, a Greensboro Democrat, said the 2nd Senate District “doesn’t work as the opportunity district that I think the court had in mind in terms of the numbers.”
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Republican lawmakers hope to show the issues of compactness and unified communities in court. They hope a second round of litigation, or even another trip to the Supreme Court, will allow them to avoid creating a map that gives a second of Alabama’s seven congressional districts to a Democrat.
Bullock and Crayton were skeptical that the high court would immediately reverse its decision, saying federal courts discount compactness and preserve communities in redistricting.
“He can’t take a stand on issues that are rooted in federal law,” Crayton said, calling those arguments “silly.”
Bullock said the case may not reach the Supreme Court in time for the 2024 election, and Republicans may anticipate losing on the issue, but they won’t vote for a plan that would kill a sitting Republican lawmaker.
“Another interpretation would be that they couldn’t get one of their friends,” Bullock said. “Let someone else take the blame. Let the courts take the blame.”
