AL Political Reporter: “But the script from which Alabama solicitor general Edmund LaCour was working didn’t direct his performance towards the three-judge U.S. District Court panel.
No, it was meant for just one: A Supreme Court justice named Brett Kavanaugh.
Honestly, this should not have surprised anyone. The day Alabama’s GOP-led legislature passed a congressional voting map with only one minority district and a second that achieved only 40-percent Black, the game was obvious.
Alabama had no intention of complying with the district courts or the Supreme Court, which demanded that Alabama draw two minority districts, or something very close to it.
Instead, there was a plan concocted in a back room somewhere. A plan that several Alabama Republican lawmakers admitted in court on Monday that they knew nothing about and wanted no part of.
APR’s Bill Britt reported on this plan in the days after the new maps were approved. Citing a number of sources who were in the room when the plan was discussed, the story said Alabama Republicans, led by AG Steve Marshall and ALGOP executive director John Wahl, believed that the state’s failure before the Supreme Court in June was due to the fact that the case was limited to only the ruling of the district court.
But they believed that if they went directly after the Voting Rights Act, and specifically Section 2, that they could appeal to at least one justice. And the sources said they were told that Kavanaugh had allegedly let it be known, through some back channels or underlings or smoke signals, that he would be open to switching his vote if such a challenge materialized.”