Lawyers for voters called Alabama’s plan, which maintains one majority-Black congressional district, discriminatory
Alabama Republicans on Monday defended their decision not to create a second majority-Black district in a hearing before a panel of federal judges over the state’s redrawn congressional maps.
State Republicans continue to resist court orders, including from the supreme court in June, to amend the congressional maps to give Black voters increased political power and representation.
Lawyers for voters called Alabama’s plan, which maintains one majority-Black district, discriminatory. Abha Khanna, an attorney representing one group of plaintiffs in the case, said Alabama chose “defiance over compliance”.
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In response to the ruling, Alabama Republicans boosted the percentage of Black voters in the majority-white second congressional district, now represented by Republican representative Barry Moore, from about 30% to 39.9%, failing to give Black voters a majority which would allow them to elect their candidate of choice.
A lawyer for the state accused plaintiffs of seeking a “racial gerrymander” over traditional guidelines for drawing districts, such as keeping districts compact and keeping communities of interest together.
Garland is spineless, the Right Wing's current talking points are constantly about the weaponization of the DoJ, but that's just for two reasons, making the Biden admin look like they're "the big gubment coming to get conservatives" and normalizing what Trump and DeSantis and too many other Republican candidates want to actually do once they get control of the country back. Once that happens you will see useless hearings like the Hillary Benghazi hearings or worse, much worse.
Garland should fucking be removed from the GOP if he refuses to do his fucking job. He never should have been appointed. He is a Republican that will allow them to do whatever they want.
Congressional boundaries need to be drawn by a neutral party, not the political party which happens to be in power.
Maybe that's a potential use for generative AI?
"Draw up a congressional boundary map for Alabama being sure to allocate each of the seven districts with an equal population and with two of the seven being a majority of African Americans."
Shortest straight line method is perfectly fair, non-partisan, and super easy to implement with basic GIS tools and a free map from the census bureau. It wouls take literally minutes to determine every congressional district in the country, and every 10 years you could spend 30 seconds importing the new numbers to get new maps.
Yes, sometimes the lines separate neighbors. So what?
I don't care if my neighbor is in a different congressional district.
I mean, the line has to fall somewhere and there are neighbors in different towns and cities and even states in some places, what's the big deal about a district?
One obvious downside to this approach is that it ignores natural and political boundaries. There may be good reasons to put an entire city into one district, for example, but the algorithm might not make that happen.
we're about to see what happens if you tell the supreme court to get fucked. I assumed the next constitutional crisis was gonna be either marijuana laws or when some state decides to just not bother with elections, but this could be a fun one too
Nah, this just goes to a lower court who hands it off to a special master who then redraws the lines with zero input from their legislature: It’s if they try and ignore that is where we get into the fun “federal executive flexes it’s genitals at a state” and runs the election. Probably a long con, but the Republicans are going to lose at least one seat, and the special master may find a way to make them lose two.
Alabama Republicans on Monday defended their decision not to create a second majority-Black district in a hearing before a panel of federal judges over the state’s redrawn congressional maps.
Abha Khanna, an attorney representing one group of plaintiffs in the case, said Alabama chose “defiance over compliance”.
The results of the extended court battle could also determine whether Democrats pick up another seat in Congress, where Republicans currently hold a slim majority.
“It’s unlawful to enforce proportionality over traditional redistricting principles,” Edmund LaCour, Alabama’s solicitor general, told the three-judge panel.
Plaintiffs in the supreme court case attended with many wearing T-shirts printed with their proposed map which would have two majority-Black districts.
“Alabama’s latest congressional map is a continuation of the state’s sordid history of defying court orders intended to protect the rights of Black voters,” former US attorney general Eric Holder, chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said in a statement.
I wonder how many dead Alabama Republican politicians it would take to change their minds? Obviously I am just asking questions and not advocating for vigilantes to take matters into their own hands lol. But how many, though?