MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama lawmakers faced a deadline Friday to draw a new congressional district that would give Black voters a larger voice, but legislators showed little willingness to create a district with as many Black voters as courts have ordered.
Lawmakers in the Republican-dominated Alabama Legislature sped toward an afternoon vote on a new plan that would increase the percentage of Black voters from about 31% to 40% in the state's 2nd District. A conference committee proposed the map as a compromise between rival House and Senate plans that had percentages of 42% and 38%, respectively.
Black lawmakers said that is far short of a court directive to create a second majority-Black district or “something quite close to it" so that Black voters "have an opportunity to elect a representative of their choice.”
“There’s no opportunity there for anybody other than a white Republican to win that district. It will never, ever elect a Democrat. They won't elect a Black. They won't elect a minority,” said Sen. Rodger Smitherman, a Democrat from Birmingham.
Republicans have maintained that the decision does not require a second Black district but to give Black voters ample opportunity to influence the election outcome.
Senate President Pro Tem Greg Reed, a Jasper Republican, said Thursday that the Senate plan focuses on keeping communities together and keeping districts as compact as possible.
“How do we keep those communities together? How do they wind up being recognized as communities of interest? That’s a big decision,” Reed said.
The debate in Alabama is being closely watched across the nation, and could be mirrored in fights in Louisiana, Georgia, Texas and other states.
A three-judge panel ruled in 2022 that the current legislative map likely violates the federal Voting Rights Act and said any map should include two districts where “Black voters either comprise a voting-age majority or something quite close to it.” The Supreme Court upheld that decision.
After a plan is passed, the fight will shift quickly back to the federal court. The plaintiffs who won the Supreme Court case have vowed to fight the proposal if enacted. They say it’s crucial that Blacks have more representation in Alabama and other states if their votes are to be meaningful.
“Let’s be clear: The Alabama Legislature believes it is above the law. What we are dealing with is a group of lawmakers who are blatantly disregarding not just the Voting Rights Act, but a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court and a court order from the three-judge district court," plaintiffs in case said Friday in a statement.
Experts have said the GOP proposals fall short of what the Supreme Court said last month is required by law.
“I think this is another good example, maybe the latest and perhaps the most brazen, of a legislature that didn’t want to take the hint,” said Kareem Crayton, senior director for voting and representation at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice.
“They have pretended as though the court didn’t say what it said,” Crayton said. The Brennan Center filed a brief supporting the plaintiffs before the Supreme Court.
An analysis by The Associated Press, using redistricting software, showed that the 2nd District proposed by state senators, with a Black voting-age population of 38%, has been routinely and easily won by Republicans in recent elections. The House proposal, with a Black voting-age population of 42%, is closely split between Democrats and Republicans, but could still shut out Black voter preferences.
But those who study redistricting say that’s simply not enough, considering how sharply Alabama voters divide along racial lines.
“I would think at 38 or 42 that the court isn’t going to sign off,” said Charles Bullock, a University of Georgia political scientist who wrote a book about redistricting. He predicted the three-judge panel would end up drawing its own map.
Republican lawmakers hope to showcase the issues of compactness and unified communities in court. They're hoping a second round of litigation, or even another trip to the Supreme Court, will let them avoid creating a map that gives a second of Alabama’s seven congressional districts to a Democrat.
Bullock and Crayton were skeptical that the high court would immediately backtrack on its ruling and said federal courts discount compactness and preserving communities in redistricting.
“It can’t take a front seat to matters that are entrenched in federal law," Crayton said, calling those arguments “silly.”
Bullock said the case might not make it back to the Supreme Court in time for the 2024 election, and it could be that Republicans anticipate losing on the issue but won't vote for a plan that sacrifices a sitting Republican congressman.
“Another interpretation would be they couldn’t bring themselves to do in one of their friends," Bullock said. “Let somebody else take the blame. Let the courts take the blame.”
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