Three federal judges are meeting in Birmingham today to hear arguments on whether Alabama’s new congressional redistricting map fixes likely violations of the Voting Rights Act. Here's what you need to know:
– or something “quite close to it” - to give Black Alabama residents fair representation in Congress. Alabama now has one majority Black district – or about 14 percent of its seven congressional districts. Black residents make up about 26 percent of the state’s population.Republican lawmakers approved a new map last month in a special session called to meet the judges’ deadline for redrawing it..
Lawyers for the state, led by Attorney General Steve Marshall, say the new map does comply with the Voting Rights Act, which they say not does not require proportional representation for minorities. They say the new map is an improvement over the one rejected by the Supreme Court, partly because the districts are more compact and what the state defined as communities of interest, including the Black Belt, Baldwin and Mobile counties, and the Wiregrass, are kept intact as much as possible.
Now, with the case back in their hands, the three federal judges inside the Hugo L. Black United States Courthouse have to decide if the new map fixes the problems.Closing arguments are set for Monday afternoon with each side getting an hour.The focus with the Legislature’s new map involved re-drawing a portion of Rep. Barry Moore’s District 2 seat in southeast Alabama.
would make revisions to other current districts including to District 6 in the Birmingham area now held by Rep. Gary Palmer.three judges - Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus and District Judges Anna M. Manasco and Terry F. Moorer – don’t agree with the Alabama Legislature’s new map they could order a new one drawn by a cartographer they hire. But whoever loses the case is likely headed back to the U.S. Supreme Court for an appeal. If the state loses its case, it will pin its hopes on getting one U.S.
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