No Need to Racially Gerrymander Electoral Map, Alabama Tells Supreme Court
Alabama defended its redrawn electoral map before the Supreme Court on Oct. 4, arguing that the federal Voting Rights Act (VRA) does not require the state to racially gerrymander districts to guarantee black representation in the state’s congressional delegation.
The hearing came after a flurry of activity in the legal dispute.
On Jan. 24, a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama issued a preliminary injunction against John Merrill, Alabama’s Republican secretary of state, temporarily forbidding him from conducting any congressional elections in the state.
That court found that instead of having one predominantly black congressional district, as it currently has, federal law and existing legal precedents require the state to have two predominantly black districts. Alabama disagrees. The state’s delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives currently consists of six Republicans and one Democrat.
On Feb. 7, the Supreme Court stayed the lower court ruling over the dissents of Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, as well as then-Justice Stephen Breyer.
The case is actually two cases, Merrill v. Milligan (court file 21-1086) and Merrill v. Caster (court file 21-1087), which the court consolidated.
Alabama Solicitor General Edmund G. LaCour Jr. told the justices that his state “conducted its 2021 redistricting in a lawful, race-neutral manner.”
“The state largely retained its existing districts and made changes needed to equalize population,” LaCour said. “But that wasn’t good enough for the plaintiffs.”
“They argue that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act requires Alabama to replace its map with a racially gerrymandered plan maximizing the number of majority-minority districts. But Section 2 requires an electoral process equally open to all, not one that guarantees maximum political success for some over others. Section 2 does not and cannot obligate Alabama to abandon district
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