![]() The other six districts have reliably elected white Republicans for the last decade. ![]() The 7th Congressional District snakes a winding path from Birmingham through the state’s Black Belt to sections of Montgomery. ![]() “The VRA is meant to prohibit racial gerrymanders, not require them,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement to The Associated Press. ![]() The state contends the Black population is too spread out and that creating a second district would require contortionist maneuvers, such as connecting coastal areas in southwest Alabama to peanut farms in the east. Pringle said lawmakers prioritized a race-neutral approach, taking the previous map and tweaking it for population changes. Chris Pringle, a Mobile Republican and chairman of the legislative committee that drew the new lines. “I think the Supreme Court is going to back us up that we complied with existing law,” said state Rep. Republican lawmakers and the Republican attorney general say the plaintiffs want to wrongly prioritize race above other redistricting principles such as keeping districts compact with like-minded communities. That 1992 map is the basis for the one in use today.Īlabama maintains that courts, the Justice Department and even a legislature previously controlled by Democrats have blessed versions of the existing map for decades. They did not return until 1993, a year after the courts ordered the state to reconfigure the 7th Congressional District into a majority-Black one, which has since been held by a succession of Black Democrats. It’s not necessarily guaranteeing that they will have their candidate elected,” said Deuel Ross, who will be arguing the case as senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which is representing the plaintiffs.Īfrican Americans served in Alabama’s congressional delegation during Reconstruction. “This is just about getting Black voters, finally, in Alabama the opportunity to elect their candidates of choice. That limits their influence in the state’s other six districts.Ī three-judge panel that included two appointees of President Donald Trump ruled unanimously in January that Alabama likely violated the Voting Rights Act by giving Black voters “less opportunity than other Alabamians to elect candidates of their choice to Congress.” The judges ordered lawmakers to draw new lines for this year’s election.īut in a 5-4 decision in February, the Supreme Court sided with Alabama and allowed this year’s congressional elections to take place without a change. The lawsuit claims Alabama dilutes the voting strength of Black residents by packing a large number of them into a single district - the 7th, where 55% of voters are Black - while fragmenting Black communities elsewhere. Milligan said it denies Black voters the opportunity to “elect an additional person that can really go to the mat on their interests,” citing issues ranging from generational poverty to the lack of internet service. ![]() “Our congressional map is not reflective of the population that lives in Alabama,” said Evan Milligan, 41, among voters and advocacy groups who filed the lawsuit challenging the district lines. African Americans are about 27% of the state’s population but are the majority in just one of the state’s seven congressional districts. The plaintiffs contend that under the Voting Rights Act, Alabama is required to create a second congressional district in which Black voters make up a majority, or close to it. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |