Federal court selects new Alabama congressional map
A federal court Thursday ordered Alabama to implement a new congressional map drawn by a court-appointed special master that creates a majority-Black district and a near-majority Black district.
In a 49-page opinion issued on Thursday morning, U.S. Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus and U.S. district judges Anna Manasco and Terry Moorer wrote that the plan, known as Remedial Plan 3, did the best job addressing their concerns about giving Black voters a voice in the political process and the Legislature’s interest in keeping communities whole.
“We find that Remedial Plan 3 completely remedies the vote dilution we found and satisfies all applicable federal constitutional and statutory requirements while most closely approximating the policy choices the Alabama Legislature made in the 2023 Plan,” the judges wrote.
The judges’ decision, which could result in the election of a second Democratic U.S. representative from Alabama, comes after an almost two-year court battle that has gone to the nation’s highest court twice.
Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen said in a statement Thursday he would implement the map the state had been “forced” to use for the 2024 election.
“A full hearing on the redistricting issue will take place in the future and I trust Attorney General (Steve) Marshall to represent Alabama through that process,” the statement said. “In the meantime, I will keep our state’s elections safe, secure and transparent because that is what I was elected to do.”
The plan, created by Special Master Richard Allen, creates a 2nd Congressional District running from Mobile County through the southern Black Belt and to the Georgia border, with a Black Voting Age Population (BVAP) of 48.7%. It also creates a 7th Congressional District in the western Black Belt and Jefferson County with a BVAP of 51.9%.
The court in 2022 ordered the state to draw new congressional maps after determining that the Legislature had unconstitutionally packed Black voters into a single congressional district, the 7th, in western Alabama. Citing the racial polarization of voting in Alabama, where white Alabamians tend to support Republicans and Black Alabamians tend to support Democrats, the court ordered the creation of a second majority-Black district “or something quite close to it.”
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the lower court ruling twice. The Alabama Legislature in July approved a new congressional map that created a 7th Congressional District with a BVAP of 50.65% and a 2nd district with a BVAP of less than 40%. The three-judge panel rejected the map in September and sharply criticized the state for not following its instructions.
The court rejected another Allen plan that would have created two majority-Black congressional districts, saying it split too many counties.
An analysis of the Remedial District 3 plan found a Black-preferred candidate would win 16 of 17 recent elections in the 2nd Congressional District, and all 17 contests in the 7th district.
Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, an independent nonprofit website covering politics and policy in state capitals around the nation.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Federal court selects new Alabama congressional map
