The Republican majority in the Alabama Legislature approved a new Congressional district map on Friday. But Democratic lawmakers, who opposed the plan, said Friday’s vote will not be the last word.
has tentatively scheduled a hearing to start Aug. 14 to hear challenges to the plan.
Only one of the state’s seven Congressional districts has a majority Black population, even though one-fourth of Alabama residents are Black. The three-judge district court, including two President Trump appointees, noted that the Voting Rights Act does not guarantee Black citizens representation in proportion to their share of the population.
The map approved by the conference committee Friday would leave District 7 as the lone majority Black district, barely, at 51% in Black voting age population, down from 56% on the current map. It would increase the Black voting age population in District 2, which covers southeast Alabama, from 30% to 40%.
“If you think about where we were, the Supreme Court ruling was 5-4,” Ledbetter said. “So there’s just one judge that needed to see something different. And I think what we’ve done with the compromise today, there’s a good shot.” Asked how the 40% Black voting age population in District 2 would comply with the court’s guidance that a remedy for the Voting Rights Act violation was a second majority Black district “or something quite close to it,” Ledbetter said he was not sure that was the message from the court’s ruling.
“This is a continuation of Alabama’s fraught history with racial inequity, a history filled with Black Alabamians’ struggle for equal rights,” Holder said. “It is one where, at every turn, the federal courts have had to intervene on behalf of Black Alabamians in order to achieve the fair representation and equality they deserve as citizens of this nation. What is happening in Alabama underscores the absolute necessity of enforcing the legal protections in the Voting Rights Act.
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