A proposal to redraw Alabama’s congressional districts has been criticized by leaders and advocates, who say the new map is still biased against black residents, despite a Supreme Court order to address the imbalance.
Last month, the conservative-led Supreme Court handed an upset victory to voting rights advocates when it struck down the map of Congress drawn up by Alabama’s Republicans. Agreeing with a lower court, the Supreme Court said it diluted the power of black voters by having only one majority-black district, even though the state’s black population, in about 28%, is big enough to justify two. At the court’s direction, the Legislature will have to adopt a new congress map, with two majority black districts, for Friday.
But that’s not what’s happening at the state Capitol.
In a special session Monday, the GOP-led Legislature recommended a new map which maintains only one majority-black district, District 7. Instead, the proposed map would shift the concentration of black voters in this district and redraw the lines of the neighboring second district to include more black voters, but not to the extent that advocates they wanted, according to KXAS, an NBC affiliate.
The 2nd district would increase the proportion of black voters from around 30% to 42.5%. Although Republican lawmakers have recognized that the second district is not majority black, they maintain that it would still comply with the court’s directive. The redistricting committee approved the map 14-6, The Birmingham News informed.
Rep. Chris England, Democrat, tweeted a photo of the map on Monday, writing: “It should be noted that this plan was not discussed at any of the public hearings and has not been vetted. Also, it is not yet available on the legislature’s website.”
Evan Milligan, one of the lead plaintiffs in the Allen vs. Milligan case, said black people in Alabama will continue to be subjected to inaccessible health care and poor job and educational opportunities as a result of this voter suppression.
“We are very concerned even by the process that produced that map,” Milligan said of the proposed map. “A process that appeared to lack accountability and real consideration for what the court ordered our Legislature to do. It’s disappointing that this has happened now, given the importance of good representation in our way of life.”
Governor Kay Ivey convened the special session on Monday last month, saying, “It is critical that Alabama be fairly and accurately represented in Washington.” The Legislature has until the end of the week to approve a new map in accordance with the Supreme Court’s decision, and the new map must be ready by the 2024 election. Next, the court will review the proposal and decide whether to approve the new map of the Congress.
On June 8, the conservative-majority Supreme Court unexpectedly affirmed part of the Voting Rights Act by striking down the map of Congress drawn by Alabama Republicans in Allen v. Milligan.
Rep. Terri Sewell, a Democrat and Alabama’s only black member of Congress, represents the state’s only majority-black district. Sewell declined to comment on the proposed map. But last month, Sewell praised the Allen v. Milligan and seemed hopeful that the Alabama Legislature would finally produce a map that would be fair to blacks in the state.
“The hope is eternal that the state Legislature heeds the plaintiffs’ warning,” Sewell told NBC News in June. “Rather than the state Legislature packing African-Americans into one district, which was voter dilution,” the Supreme Court said the state of Alabama had to create another map “more in line with the percentage they have in the population ”.
Alabama has been at the center of several voting rights disputes in recent years, with advocates fighting for more representative voting power for the state’s black population. Although blacks make up nearly a third of Alabama’s population, the state has long had a single majority-black district. Denying Alabama’s blacks fair representation in government, advocates say, means they can’t use their voting power to elect officials who uphold fairness for them.
