The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied Alabama’s request to halt a lower court’s order for a special master to redraw the Legislature’s election map after GOP lawmakers failed to add a second majority-Black district.
Without comment, the high court noted the state’s petition to block the lower court’s decision was denied.
Earlier this month, Alabama asked the Supreme Court to step in and block a lower court ruling that enjoined its 2023 congressional election map and ordered a special master appointment to redraw the map with two majority-Black districts.
It’s the second time Alabama has come to the high court over the GOP Legislature’s election map.
Alabama unsuccessfully argued that the lower court’s ruling was wrong because it understood the Supreme Court’s analysis of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to require lawmakers to draw a second majority-Black district.
“The District Court’s injunction is premised on this fundamental error: The only way for Alabama to satisfy [Section] 2 in a new redistricting plan was to create two majority black districts,” the state wrote in its filing.
The pleading came shortly after a three-judge panel from a federal district court in Alabama ruled a special master must step in and draw a new congressional map since the state Legislature defied the Supreme Court and refused to add a second majority-Black district to its 2023 plan.
The panel from the Northern District of Alabama noted the high court in June upheld its earlier ruling against the GOP state lawmakers, reasoning a map that included only one majority-Black district ran afoul of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
The Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling in June said Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act compels states to make sure their voting processes are “equally open” to all by ensuring that minorities have at least the same opportunities as others.
The high court reasoned that Black voters’ power was illegally diluted when the map split them among several districts and left just one where they were the dominant political force.
Alabama’s map violates the law under the court’s precedents for judging district lines, said the majority, siding with lower courts.
“We agree with the District Court, therefore, that plaintiffs’ illustrative maps ‘strongly suggest[ed] that Black voters in Alabama’ could constitute a majority in a second, reasonably configured, district,” Chief Justice G. John Roberts Jr. wrote.
The state Legislature, when given another chance at redrawing the map, did not add a second district.
The Republican-controlled Legislature redrew lines after the June decision, reaching again only one majority-Black district out of seven. The state has 27% Black residents. The map passed in July boosted the number of Black voters in District 2 from 30% to 40%, according to The Associated Press.
The three-judge panel in its Sept. 5 decision said it was “deeply troubled” by the state’s decision and has decided to have a third party step in and take on the map-drawing role.
“We are three years into a 10-year redistricting cycle, and the Legislature has had ample opportunity to draw a lawful map,” the ruling read. “We do not take lightly federal intrusion into a process ordinarily reserved for the state Legislature. But we have now said twice that this Voting Rights Act case is not close. And we are deeply troubled that the state enacted a map that the state readily admits does not provide the remedy we said federal law requires.”
• Stephen Dinan contributed to this story.
