On Tuesday, a three-judge panel struck down the Alabama Legislature’s new congressional redistricting map. The Court is expected to appoint a special master to redraw Alabama’s congressional map because the state Legislature refused to draw a map compliant with the Court’s previous order to draw a map with two majority-minority districts.
In June, the Court ordered the state to submit a map with two majority-minority districts or something close to that. Instead, Alabama Republicans simply drew a map increasing the percentage of Black voters in Republican Congressman Barry Moore’s Second Congressional District from 30% to 39.9%.
“We are not aware of any other case in which a state legislature — faced with a federal court order declaring that its electoral plan unlawfully dilutes minority votes and requiring a plan that provides an additional opportunity district — responded with a plan that the state concedes does not provide that district,” the judges wrote in a 196-page ruling.
The plaintiffs in the Milligan v Allen case that challenged the original 2021 redistricting as not compliant with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 rejected the second map. On Tuesday, the Court issued a ruling agreeing with the plaintiffs.
None of this was unexpected. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall in August told the Alabama Republican Executive Committee meeting in Montgomery that he was skeptical of the three-judge panel ruling in favor of the state.
The state lost a narrow 5 to 4 decision before the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court in June affirmed that the three-judge panel in Atlanta was correct in its initial 2022 decision to halt Alabama’s election under the 2021 redistricting. After the initial judgment, the three-judge panel’s decision to block the 2022 election, the Supreme Court ruled that the three-judge panel likely had been right that the 2021 redistricting was not compliant with the Voting Rights Act.
The special master has been given until September 25 to redraw Alabama’s Congressional districts, creating a second majority-minority district.
The state is expected to ask the Supreme Court to stay the three-judge panel ruling and hear this case as they did last year. The state will likely ask the Supreme Court to again stay the three-judge panel’s ruling to allow the 2024 elections to take place under the partisan 2022 redistricting. The plaintiffs suing the state will undoubtedly challenge any legal maneuvering by the state of Alabama.
State Senators close to the redistricting decision explained to Alabama Today that the state is staking its hope on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh switching sides and voting with the four conservative jurists: Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch. All of this is dependent on the Supreme Court even considering the case. They are not obligated by law to take up the matter.
Kavanaugh voted with Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the decision for the majority.
The three-judge panel is comprised of one Clinton appointee, Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus, and two Trump appointees, District Judge Anna Manasco and District Judge Terry Moorer.
Candidate qualifying with the two major political parties begins in October, so the state needs to know what the district boundaries will look like by October 1.
If this decision is applied to other southern states, including Texas and Florida, Democrats could pick up as many as twelve new majority-minority districts, likely flipping control of the U.S. House of Representatives to the Democrats in the 2024 elections.
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