The ruling is hugely consequential
Here’s a piece of good news at last – racial gerrymandering is racial gerrymandering.
Alabama Republicans illegally discriminated against Black voters when they drew the state’s seven new congressional districts last year and must quickly redraw the plan, a federal court has ruled.
The ruling is hugely consequential, a blunt assessment of the way lawmakers use their power to draw district lines to dilute the influence of Black and other minority voters.
Pending lawsuits in North Carolina and Texas similarly allege that lawmakers illegally drew districts on the basis of race.
It sounds as if this could be the undoing of the Shelby ruling. Unless of course the Supremes get involved.
The seventh congressional district in Alabama, which stretches from Birmingham to the rural Black Belt, has consistently elected a Black Democrat to Congress for 30 years. Nearly 56% of the voting-age population in the district is Black. The state’s other six districts have all been represented by white Republicans.
The plaintiffs in the case, including four voters, two state senators and several civil rights groups, argued that Alabama Republicans packed as many Black voters into the district as possible – about a third of Alabama’s Black population – in order to weaken their influence in other district across the state.
Let’s hope the ruling stands.
And the Attorney General is going to appeal. Of course he is. He was probably hoping for this verdict just so he could push the issue to SCOTUS.
Sackbut, of course he is! If he can’t win with this Court he’d have to wait until after being a Democrat was made illegal under the upcoming constitutional reform in 2026 :-|
I mean, in this Court you’ll get Thomas saying there’s no racism because he’s black and on the Supreme Court, Kavanagh will just look up and snarl “I like beer Libtards”, and the other conservatives will claim not to see colour and that there are clearly other reasons for the redistricting (Oh look! Squirrel!).
Well, Flo and Mary are no longer with us, so it’d just be Diana.
Oh, right, wrong Supremes.
Well, sounds like good news for now, but I can’t imagine that the Supremes won’t get involved.