Diluting the influence
Alabama Republicans are still battling Reconstruction.
Just a few months ago, the US supreme court issued one of its most surprising rulings in recent memory.
In a 5-4 decision in Allen v Milligan, the court said Alabama’s congressional map violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act because it diluted the influence of Black voters, who make up about a quarter of the state’s population, but comprise a majority in just one of Alabama’s congressional districts. The justices upheld a lower court’s decision ordering Alabama to redraw its map “to include two districts in which Black voters either comprise a voting-age majority or something quite close to it”.
It was widely seen as a major win for the Voting Rights Act, a statute that the US supreme court has significantly hollowed out over the last decade. It was a victory that was supposed to give the Black belt, a historically Black region in the state that is among the poorest in the US, better representation in Washington.
In sharp contrast to the Shelby ruling, which was supposed to give Black voters worse representation.
But when Alabama’s Republican-controlled legislature convened just a few weeks later, they ignored the mandate. Their new map still included just one majority Black district. It increased the percentage of Black voters in a second district to be around 41% Black, but continued to crack the Black belt, a historically Black region that stretches across the middle of Alabama, into multiple districts. Now, it is asking a federal court to approve that map and, if they don’t, the case will probably return to the supreme court.
Alabama Republicans would restore slavery if they could.
Only they were Democrats during Reconstruction. They use that, to “prove” that Democrats are the ones who were racists, never acknowledging that they were the Democrats.
iknklast:
The plot thickens, with knuckle-dragging, Dixie-worshipping slave-marketeers dressing up in gorilla suits to fool the unwary.
Thank you, Ophelia, for drawing attention to this. I wonder at those, who appear to be mostly on the libertarian right, who look at the world through Rand-tinted glasses, and who simply refuse to look at realities. It really is not a matter of sentimental wokery versus anti-wokery, which is what the question too often gets reduced to (mostly intentionally, I suspect), but seeing what is out there & recognising complex realities.
iknklast I know today’s Republicans aren’t Lincoln Republicans, I didn’t mean “still” that way – I meant “still” as in “long after everyone else stopped.”
I think it’s appalling that legislatures have the power to draw districts. In Wisconsin, the legislature has been drawn to favor Republicans for the last two cycles so even though the popular vote is usually Democratic majority, the legislature has a solid Republican veto-proof majority in both the Assembly and the Senate. The State Supreme Court is now in the hands of a liberal majority, but with a redistricing court case coming up, the Republican majority are talking about impeaching the newest St. Supreme Court Justice because she once stated that the districts are gerrymandered. Which they are. Milwaukee and Madison have, basically, no representation in the legislature. When the current Democratic governor was first elected, they called a special session to limit the power of the executive branch, and claimed they had planned to do so anyway, even if Walker had won re-election.
What’s even more appalling is that even though the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in Alabama, it’s nearly impossible to enforce the ruling. The DOJ will have to do something but what I don’t know is what they have the authority to do.
What y’all don’t understand is, if our Negroes would just start votin’ Republican there won’t be no problem!
Ophelia, I was sure you did; my comment was just sort of random.
‘A state judge ruled Saturday that a Florida redistricting plan pushed by Ron DeSantis violates the state constitution and is prohibited from being used for any future U.S. congressional elections since it diminishes the ability of Black voters in north Florida to pick a representative of their choice.’
(Crooks & Liars website)