Dem
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GOP
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The Alabama redistricting case may have finally reached its denouement, as a 3-judge panel in a federal district court in Alabama has issued a final ruling finding that the Alabama state legislature violated the Voting Rights Act in its 2023 redrawing of legislative districts.
This saga began in 2021 when voters challenged the state legislature's redistricting plan that only included one majority-Black congressional district, which was itself drawn by a federal court in 1992. The Court issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting the use of that map, finding that it was substantially likely that it violated Section Two of the Voting Rights Act by "unlawfully diluting the votes of Black Alabamians." The Court ordered the legislature to draw a new map that included a second majority-Black district "based on extensive evidence of intensely racially polarized voting in Alabama." The Supreme Court put that order on hold and the 2021 map was used in the 2022 congressional elections. In June 2023, the Supreme Court upheld the preliminary injunction and agreed that the 2021 map violated the Voting Rights Act.
The case then went back to the 3-judge panel in 2023, so the parties could get their marching orders. The state asked the Court to delay imposing a remedy to give the legislature time to draw a new map in light of the Court's findings. The Court agreed, and in July 2023 was rewarded for its deference by the legislature essentially bringing the same map back to them, one that still included only one majority-Black district. The state argued that the 2023 plan didn't need two majority-Black districts to comply with the Court's findings. The judges, all appointed by Republicans, including two Donald Trump appointees, were dumbfounded: "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 remedial plan that provides an additional opportunity district—responded with a plan that the state concedes does not provide that district."
The Court preliminarily enjoined the 2023 plan and directed a special master to propose three remedial maps for the Court to consider. The state once again sought a stay from the Supreme Court, but was rebuffed. The district court chose Remedial Plan 3, which included two majority-Black districts, and ordered that it be used in the 2024 elections. Both districts, AL-02 and AL-07, elected Black Representatives in 2024. Interestingly, the Court's appointed cartographer did not consider race when preparing the plans. The Special Master explained:
[The] proposed remedial plans are neither prohibited racial gerrymanders nor intentionally discriminatory... [W]hile the Special Master confirmed that Black residents had an opportunity to elect candidates of their choice through an election performance analysis, the boundaries within the recommended remedial plans were not drawn on the basis of race. In fact, the Special Master's cartographer, Mr. Ely, did not display racial demographic data while drawing districts or examining others' proposed remedial plans within the mapping software, Maptitude. Instead, Mr. Ely relied on other characteristics and criteria, such as preserving the Black Belt community of interest, restoring counties that had been split, and preserving precincts and municipalities to the extent possible.
The parties were back in court in February for a full trial on the merits that lasted 11 days and, last week, the Court issued its final ruling on the 2023 map. The judges did not hold back in their scathing 570-page opinion. The Court found that the Alabama legislature "intentionally discriminated against Black Alabamians when it passed the 2023 plan." The Court reiterated that "[t]he Voting Rights Act does not provide a leg up for Black voters—it merely prevents them from being kept down with regard to what is arguably the most 'fundamental political right,' in that it is 'preservative of all rights'—the right to vote." The evidence was undisputed that voting in Alabama is "intensely racially polarized" in that "Black candidates have enjoyed zero success in statewide elections in Alabama since 1994 (when a single Black person was elected to the Alabama Supreme Court after a previous appointment), and only three Black candidates have ever been elected to any statewide office since Reconstruction. Similarly, Black candidates have enjoyed near-zero success in legislative elections outside of opportunity districts: thirty-two of the thirty-three Black Alabamians currently serving in the 140-person Legislature were elected from majority-Black districts created to comply with federal law."
And the legislature's flagrant disregard for the Court's order left it astonished:
[T]ry as we might, we cannot understand the 2023 Plan as anything other than an intentional effort to dilute Black Alabamians' voting strength and evade the unambiguous requirements of court orders standing in the way. After we and the Supreme Court ruled that the 2021 Plan, with only one majority-Black district, likely had the unlawful discriminatory effect of diluting Black Alabamians' votes, the Legislature deliberately enacted another Plan that it concedes lacks the second Black-opportunity district we said was required. This amounted to intentional racial discrimination in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection guarantee.
The end result is that the 2023 Plan is permanently enjoined and based on the finding of intentional discrimination under the Voting Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court could order the state to resume preclearance under Section 3(c) of the Voting Rights Act for future congressional districting. This would put the state under federal supervision for potentially any changes related to voting rules and procedures. Although the Supreme Court struck down the portion of the law that automatically required preclearance for past discrimination, a finding of intentional discrimination can be a basis for returning a state to that status. The Court will conduct remedial proceedings "expeditiously." The Court could very well order the Court-drawn map to be used in all future elections until the next census, which would not be surprising in light of the "State's view that even if we enter judgment for the Plaintiffs after a full trial, the State remains free to make the same checkmate move yet again—and again, and again, and again."
The Court wasn't done. In a final salvo, the judges said the legislature "had raised the stakes of this litigation well beyond redistricting." Recalling a shameful period and with an eye toward current events, the Court hearkened back to a decision from the Jim Crow era: "In a case all too familiar to Alabama, the Supreme Court explained decades ago that decisions to ignore court orders are intolerable in our system of ordered liberty even when they are undertaken in unassailable good faith and for purely 'righteous' purposes." They added: "The 2020 redistricting cycle in Alabama—the first cycle in 50 years that Alabama has been free of the strictures of federal preclearance—did not have to turn out this way. We wish it had not, but we have eyes to see the veritable mountain of evidence that it did." (L)