WASHINGTON — In a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for Alabama to use its new congressional district map even though a lower court said it violated the Voting Rights Act by denying Black voters a new district.
The court granted a request from Alabama Republicans to put a hold on the lower court ruling.
The case — the first to reach the Supreme Court involving the redrawing of political boundaries with 2020 census results — could affect redistricting in other states that experienced gains in minority populations.
The Supreme Court also said it would hear Alabama’s challenge to the lower court ruling that declared the maps void. That appeal will not likely be heard until the court’s new term begins in the fall. As a practical matter, the court’s action allows Alabama Republicans to use their map for this year’s elections.
Chief Justice John Roberts joined with the three liberal justices in saying the Supreme Court should not have put the lower court ruling on hold.
Writing separately for herself and Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Elena Kagan said the court went “badly wrong in granting a stay.” Accepting Alabama’s contentions, she said, “would rewrite decades of this court’s precedents” about the protections of the Voting Rights Act.
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In past years, the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 required states with a history of racial discrimination to seek permission from the Justice Department or a federal court before new political maps could take effect. But the Supreme Court did away with that requirement in 2013.
This year’s round of redistricting is now underway with no obligation for states to seek pre-clearance. In the past, they had to justify their changes in advance, but new boundaries will now take effect unless blocked by the courts in response to lawsuits.
The 2020 census showed Alabama’s Black population rising by about 4 percent while the white population dropped about 2 percent. Blacks account for just over a quarter of the state’s total population but have a voting majority in only one of its seven congressional districts.
In drawing Alabama’s new map, the Republican-controlled legislature maintained a single district in which Black voters are the majority — the seventh, which includes Birmingham and several counties along the state’s western border. In response to lawsuits, a panel of three federal judges said the map should add a second district “in which Black voters comprise a voting-age majority or something quite close to it.”
The panel, which included one judge appointed by Bill Clinton and two appointed by Donald Trump, said Black voters had less opportunity to elect their candidates of their choice to Congress.
An emergency application to the Supreme Court filed by Alabama Republican officials said drawing two minority districts would actually force the state to violate federal law.
“It will result in a map that can be drawn only by placing race first above race-neutral districting criterial, sorting and splitting voters across the state on the basis of race alone,” they said.
They urged the court to act quickly, with absentee voting set to begin in just over two months and in-person voting to follow on May 24.
“Any eleventh hour change to a state’s existing to a state’s existing districts would require reassignment of hundreds of thousands of voters,” they said.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
