Global Courant
WASHINGTON (AP) — The High Council On Tuesday, the drawing of a new congressional map of Alabama with greater representation for black voters was allowed, rejecting the state’s plea to preserve Republican-drawn lines that were struck down by a lower court.
By refusing to intervene, the judges, without any dissent, allowed the work of a court-appointed special master to continue. On Monday, he submitted three proposals that would create a second congressional district where black voters make up the majority of the voting-age population, or are close to it.
A second district with a Democratic-leaning black majority could send a new Democrat to Congress at a time when Republicans have a razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives. There are also federal lawsuits over state and congressional districts pending in Georgia, Louisiana and Texas.
Alabama lost its Supreme Court case in June finding that the congressional map with just one majority of Black districts in seven seats dilutes the voting power of the state’s Black residents, who make up more than a quarter of Alabama’s population .
A three-judge court also blocked the use of districts drawn by the Republican-dominated state Legislature in response to the Supreme Court ruling. The justices said Alabama lawmakers deliberately defied their directive to create a second district where black voters could influence or determine the outcome.
Deep racial divisions characterize voting in Alabama. Black voters overwhelmingly prefer Democratic candidates, and white Alabamians prefer Republicans.
The state wanted to use the newly designated districts while appealing the lower court’s ruling to the Supreme Court.
Although Alabama lost its case in a 5-4 vote in June, the state leaned heavily on hopes of convincing one member of that slim majority, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, to essentially change his vote.
The state court filing repeatedly cited a separate opinion Kavanaugh wrote in June that suggested he might be receptive to the state’s arguments in the right case. Kavanaugh wrote, drawing from Justice Clarence Thomas’s dissent, that even if race-based redistricting were allowed for a certain period of time under the Voting Rights Act, “the power to conduct race-based redistricting is not indefinite can be expanded in the future.”
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