Alabama asked the Supreme Court Monday to step in and block a lower court ruling that enjoined its 2023 congressional election map and that ordered a special master appointment to redraw the map with two majority Black districts.
The state asked the justices to respond by Oct. 1 so as to avoid a court-drawn map being used and voiding the state’s opportunity to timely appeal. Alabama said the lower court’s ruling is wrong because it understood the Supreme Court’s analysis of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to require lawmakers to draw a second majority-Black district.
“The District Court’s injunction is premised on this fundamental error: The only way for Alabama to satisfy [Section] 2 in a new redistricting plan was to create two majority black districts,” the state wrote in its filing. The pleading comes a week after a three-judge panel from a federal district court in Alabama ruled a special master must step in and draw a new congressional map since thedefied the Supreme Court and refused to add a second majority Black district to its 2023 plan. The panel from the Northern District of Alabama noted the high court in June upheld its earlier ruling against the GOP state lawmakers, reasoning a map that included only one majority Black district ran afoul of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling in June said Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act compels states to make sure their voting processes are “equally open” to all by ensuring that minorities have at least the same opportunities as others. The high court reasoned that Black voters’ power was illegally diluted when the map split them among several districts and left just one where they were the dominant political force. Alabama’s map violates the law under the court’s precedents for judging district lines, said the majority, siding with lower courts. “We agree with the District Court, therefore, that plaintiffs’ illustrative maps ‘strongly suggest[ed] that Black voters in Alabama’ could constitute a majority in a second, reasonably configured, district,” Chief Justice G. John Roberts Jr. wrote., when given another chance at redrawing the map, did not add a second district. The Republican-controlled Legislature redrew lines after the June decision, reaching again only one majority Black district out of seven. The state has 27% Black residents. The map passed in July boosted the number of Black voters in District 2 from 30% to 40%, according to The Associated Press. The three-judge panel in its Sept. 5 decision said it was “deeply troubled” by the state’s decision and has decided to have a third party step in and take on the map-drawing role.
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