Federal Court Rejects Alabama’s Congressional Map

For the second time…

A federal court has invalidated Alabama’s latest congressional map for violating the Voting Rights Act.

The three-judge panel rejected the GOP-dominated legislature’s latest redrawing of district lines, chastising the state legislature for not complying with an earlier court order.

An independent special master and cartographer will draw the new map, which must include a second majority-Black district.

The Washington Post reports:

“We do not take lightly federal intrusion into a process ordinarily reserved for the State Legislature. But we have now said twice that this Voting Rights Act case is not close,” the judges wrote in the order. “And we are deeply troubled that the State enacted a map that the State readily admits does not provide the remedy we said federal law requires.”

The order further states that the judges were “disturbed by the evidence that the State delayed remedial proceedings but ultimately did not even nurture the ambition to provide the required remedy.”

The U.S. Supreme Court had issued a decision in June upholding the panel’s earlier ruling, which found that the Alabama legislature drew congressional districts that unlawfully diluted the political power of its Black residents in violation of the Voting Rights Act. The three-judge panel had ordered the state to produce a new congressional district map that includes either an additional majority-Black district or a second district in which Black voters otherwise have an opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice.

The redrawn congressional map was approved by the Republican-controlled Alabama legislature in July. It had apportioned the state’s 7th Congressional District to include a population that is 50.65 percent Black and drew its 2nd District to an area that has a population that’s 40 percent Black. The Alabama Senate voted 24-6 to pass the new plan, and the House passed the map 75-28.

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