In a steadfast move on Friday, Alabama’s Republican party delivered a freshly redrawn congressional map that holds just one majority-Black district, seemingly diverging from a U.S. Supreme Court directive.
The GOP-dominated Legislature, in a special session, was tasked with revising an earlier map after the Supreme Court echoed a federal court order to consider two districts where Black voters hold the majority among voting-age citizens, or something quite similar.
However, the freshly passed map by state Republicans features only one majority-Black district, with a second district roughly 40% Black.
The bill passed the House in a 75-28 vote after the Senate voted 24 to 6 in favor of the revised map.
Finished just hours prior to the court-imposed deadline for fresh boundary delineation, the new map emerged as a compromise between House and Senate versions.
The Democrats took umbrage with the map, accusing lawmakers of disregarding a court order and alleging the new map perpetuates a history of voter suppression.
“There was never any intent in this building to comply with their court order,” declared state Rep. Chris England, a Democrat from Tuscaloosa, implying a direct challenge to the Voting Rights Act.
Many eyes in Washington are closely monitoring the redistricting outcomes in states such as Alabama, New York, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, as the consequences could have a bearing on the control of Congress. Democrats are accusing high ranking GOP lawmakers of influencing the decision to include only one majority-black district.
According to Republican state House Speaker Nathan Ledbetter, GOP notables, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., had reached out to Republican legislators.
Tuberville’s spokesman, Steven Stafford, sent an email to Ledbetter prior to the final vote.
“Coach just wants the maps to be fair and for all Alabamians to be represented well. He trusts Alabama’s state legislators to get this right,” Stafford wrote, referring to Tuberville’s former position as Auburn University’s football coach.
McCarthy, meanwhile, affirmed to NBC News that he had interacted with several Alabama legislators.
“I’d like to know where they’re going to go and whether they’re in the process of happening,” McCarthy said.
“I know the Democrats are trying very hard to redraw New York. … I think people should be very fair in this process to be able to see what’s happening. I like to know what’s going to happen out there,” he continued.
The Republican party maintains that the new maps will provide Black voters a chance to elect their preferred representatives in line with court requirements. However, Democrats, voting rights experts, and groups that opposed the original maps disagree with this stance.
Alabama native Kareem Clayton, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, and his team analyzed 15 recent elections to assess the performance of the proposed Senate and House drafts.
They discovered that the candidate preferred by Black voters would emerge victorious only once under the Senate plan, and four times under the House plan.
The civil rights groups who contested the initial map, claiming it violated the Voting Rights Act, are prepared to combat the new one as well.
An Aug. 14 hearing will review any objections submitted by plaintiffs under the current court order. If the court rules that the map perpetuates racial gerrymandering, an outside expert may be commissioned to redraw the maps.
Plaintiffs expressed their shock and indignation as the Legislature moved ahead with two maps without a second Black-majority district.
“Alabama Republicans are intentionally drawing political retention maps at the expense of Black Alabamians — in defiance of the Supreme Court and the Alabama district court,” stated Marina Jenkins, the executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation. She promised to challenge the maps in court.
Similarly, Deuel Ross, an attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund who argued the case before the Supreme Court, expressed disappointment with Alabama’s responses to the court orders. “This is exactly why the Voting Rights Act was first created — this sort of stubbornness of states,” he said in an interview.
It remains to be seen whether the new map with only one district in majority and the other at 42%, up from 30%, will be considered “something close.” The new map certainly pushes the envelope. We will see what the Supreme Court decides.
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