Alabama is asking the Supreme Court docket to carry off on creating a brand new congressional map whereas it seeks additional appeals.
Anadolu Company through Getty Photographs
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Anadolu Company through Getty Photographs
Alabama is asking the Supreme Court docket to carry off on creating a brand new congressional map whereas it seeks additional appeals.
Anadolu Company through Getty Photographs
Alabama is as soon as once more asking the Supreme Court docket to let it preserve Republican-drawn congressional districts. In essence, the state opposes a courtroom order that was upheld by the Supreme Court docket only a few months in the past.
In June, the courtroom dominated that Alabama’s congressional map violated the Voting Rights Act as a result of, in a state with seven congressional districts and a black inhabitants of 27 p.c, the GOP-dominated Legislature created just one congressional district through which black voters had been a majority. Or near it.
The courtroom’s 5-to-4 determination was upheld by a unanimous determination by a three-judge panel that included two Trump appointees; The decrease courtroom required the creation of a second, majority-black congressional district.
However the state legislature didn’t achieve this. As an alternative, it elevated the variety of black voters from 30 to 40 p.c in a single district.
This led to a pointy rebuke from the decrease courtroom; It accused the state of delaying techniques and intentionally defying its directives after which appointed a particular grasp to attract a brand new congressional map that included two black-majority districts.
The three-judge panel declined to droop its order, saying Alabama voters shouldn’t must endure one other congressional election below an “illegitimate map.”
Now the state has filed an enchantment with the Supreme Court docket for a second time, in search of to delay the creation of a brand new map whereas it continues to file one other enchantment. She clearly hopes to influence Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who joined Chief Justice John Roberts, the creator of the June opinion, and three liberals on the courtroom, to order the creation of a second, majority-black district. Kavanaugh wrote an an identical opinion through which he steered that though he agreed with Roberts for now, “redistricting based mostly on race can’t prolong indefinitely into the long run.”
Certainly, one of many arguments that Alabama is now pursuing on enchantment is the declare that the Voting Rights Act, which is meant to handle the dilution of the black vote, is unconstitutional. If the Supreme Court docket permits this declare to proceed now, it should nearly actually delay any implementation of a brand new congressional map that includes two majority-Black districts till after the 2024 election.
On Tuesday, Choose Clarence Thomas, the decide charged with overseeing Alabama’s appeals, ordered a response by Monday to the state’s request for a postponement.