Chicken Fried Politics: “With candidate qualifying already underway for this year’s midterm election, a panel of federal judges have thrown a chunk of concrete into Alabama’s political pond, telling state legislators that they will have to recraft the state’s US House map to add a second majority-black district.
Unless a higher court intervenes, the January 24 decision will almost certainly mean another Democrat will join the state’s seven-member House delegation and one of the five sitting Republicans may have to run in unfamiliar territory in North Alabama to stay in office.
The three-judge panel — which included two judges appointed by Donald Trump — gave lawmakers in the Republican-controlled legislature 14 days to pass a new map; otherwise, they will hire their own experts and take over the process themselves.
“Any remedial plan will need to include two districts in which Black voters either comprise a voting-age majority or something quite close to it,” the judges said.
The judges also extended qualifying for the May 24 primary until February 11, although the timetable for both qualifying and the primary could shift as legal wrangling continues.
Attorney General Steve Merrill announced the state would appeal the ruling, saying he “strongly disagreed” with the judges’ conclusion that the map passed by legislators last year ran afoul of the federal Voting Rights Act.”