(CN) — Following the Republican-dominated Alabama Legislature’s repeated refusal to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a three-judge panel of the Northern District of Alabama sidestepped the lawmakers' authority on Thursday and chose the state’s next congressional district map.
After a final hearing on the subject Oct. 3, the panel adopted Remedial Map 3, which purportedly provides two Black “opportunity” districts.
Alabama’s congressional redistricting case dates back to 2021, when the original redistricting plan was initially opposed for providing only one majority-Black district. At the time, the Legislature approved six majority-white congressional districts, although nearly a quarter of the state is Black.
In July, following an unfavorable ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Legislature was forced back into special session to adopt a new map. But once again, Republican leadership defied court orders and adopted a map with only a single majority-Black district. They argued, however, that by increasing Black representation in a second district from 29% to 39%, the map provided an “opportunity” for a second majority-Black district. The panel disagreed.
In September, the Supreme Court rejected Alabama’s attempt to circumvent the redraw of its congressional maps to include a second Black majority district.
On Thursday, the judges adopted a remedial map that provides a 48.7% Black voting-age population in District 2 and a 51.9% Black voting-age population in District 7. In contrast to Republicans' intent, District 2 now carves out a portion of Mobile County, which includes the Black-majority cities of Prichard and Mobile.
To make the changes, an appointed special master in the case also cut into a portion of the majority-Black city of Birmingham, but the map preserves more than 90% of Birmingham and Mobile in their own districts. Districts 3, 4 and 5, meanwhile, are “entirely unchanged” from the Legislature’s plan. Six counties are split by the plan, but the judges agreed it preserves “communities of interest” including the Wiregrass, Black Belt and Gulf Coast.
“This plan satisfies all constitutional and statutory requirements while hewing as closely as reasonably possible to the Alabama Legislature’s 2023 Plan,” the judges wrote. “Remedial Plan 3 better respects municipal boundaries and the communities of interest that the Legislature identified.”
Still, the new plan will force two Republican incumbents, Jerry Carl of District 1 and Barry Moore of District 2, to run against each other, while some believe the move will also ensure one less Republican seat in the House of Representatives. Two of the judges on the case were appointees of former President Donald Trump, while the third was an appointee of former President Bill Clinton.
Wes Allen, Alabama’s Republican secretary of state, opposed the plan by calling it an “absurd disfigurement” of communities of interest, which would “cast aside … communities, local economies, and basic geography ... in the radical pursuit of racial quotas.” He said the plan was a “court-ordered racial gerrymander” and in service of “separate but equal” congressional districts.
The judges took particular issue with his assessment.
“There can be no genuine argument that meaningfully changing only two districts out of seven, and perfectly tracking county boundaries in nineteen of the twenty-one counties in those two districts, is a ‘disfigurement,’” they wrote. “Likewise, there can be no earnest argument that departing from the 2023 Plan in this way to remedy racially discriminatory vote dilution — while leaving 86.9% of Alabamians in precisely the same district they were in under the 2023 Plan — remotely approaches the abhorrent practice of racially segregating public schools for children.”
The court further found Remedial Map 3 “completely remedies the vote dilution” identified in the Legislature’s proposal, while also satisfying the one person, one vote requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment.
In a statement Thursday, the Alabama Republican Party said it was "disappointed" with the map.
"Of the three maps, the Court chose the map that is the most Democratic – not the map with the highest minority voting age population," the statement read. "We are hopeful Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall will continue with the appeal process. We believe Alabama's Congressional Districts should represent the communities of our state, and not be based on the liberal Democrat agenda or the color of people's skin."
On the other hand, Congresswoman Terri Sewell, the Alabama delegation's lone Democrat in District 7, said she was pleased with the map.
“After numerous hearings, three Supreme Court rulings, and unprecedented defiance by state officials, the voters of Alabama finally have a fair congressional map," she said. “While we celebrate this historic victory, the continued resistance that we face from state officials should not be lost on anyone. This long and arduous battle over Alabama’s congressional map serves as a solemn reminder that efforts to deny fair representation to Black and minority voters are still alive and well."
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