WaPo: “A panel of three federal judges rejected Alabama’s latest version of its congressional map Tuesday, saying the state’s Republican-led legislature did not follow a court order backed by the U.S. Supreme Court to comply with the Voting Rights Act when it last redrew districts in July.
The ruling — which Alabama is planning to appeal — further bolsters challenges of maps drawn by GOP-led legislatures in several other Southern states, where Democrats and civil rights groups have brought lawsuits arguing that Republicans are illegally diluting the power of Black voters. The outcomes of these challenges have the potential to shift the political makeup of federal and state legislative bodies, including which party controls Congress.
The judges in the Alabama case have directed a special master and cartographerto create three proposed remedial plans. The plans are due to be filed “no later than the close of business” on Sept. 25. Parties in the cases can subsequently file any written objections to the new plans to the court.
“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,” the judges wrote in the order. “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.”
The order also says the judges were “disturbed by the evidence that the State delayed remedial proceedings but ultimately did not even nurture the ambition to provide the required remedy.”
The U.S. Supreme Court had issued a decision in June upholding the panel’s earlier ruling, which found that the Alabama legislature drew congressional districts that unlawfully diluted the political power of Black residents in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act. The three-judge panel had ordered the state to produce a new congressional map that included either an additional majority-Black district or a second district in which Black voters otherwise would have an opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice.”