The Supreme Court on Tuesday handed a defeat to Alabama Republicans for the second time in three months, rejecting their latest attempt to use a congressional map that includes only one majority-Black district.
The court in two related applications refused emergency requests from Republican state officials to block lower court rulings that invalidated the new map. Lower court proceedings to approve a new map are still ongoing.
The decision was in line with the Supreme Court ruling against the state in June that reaffirmed a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act. There were no noted dissenting votes and the court did not explain its reasoning.
The Supreme Court’s earlier ruling forced the state back to the drawing board. But the new map — like the previous one — includes only one district where Black voters are likely to be able to elect a candidate of their choosing. Alabama has seven congressional districts, and 27% of the state’s population is Black.
It’s kind of wild that a dozen states keep suing asking, “can I be racist now?” to no avail.
This is interesting because my state eliminated its majority black districts and nothing happened beyond people complaining.
Next step should be tasking a special master to design the electoral maps & the US Marshall service enforcing Alabama’s use of them.
Curious if it’s necessary to post this in “news” as well as “politics”? Maybe just politics so it’s not in feeds twice?
There are doubtless many users who subscribe to one or the other feed, but not both—and those groups may want to discuss the article from different perspectives.
