Fincher: Why redistricting has once again become a hot topic in Alabama
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“Messy, messy, messy!” – Professor Hinkle, the antagonist magician from the “Frosty the Snowman” Christmas special
When it comes to elections, nothing much is straightforward.
But there are two areas that always end up being the stickiest of wickets. One is tracking and regulating campaign contributions and advertising. The other is drawing political district boundaries for elected offices in a fair manner.
The process of drawing those boundary lines is known as redistricting, and thanks to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last week concerning Louisiana’s Congressional boundaries, the legal guidelines for redistricting have become squigglier than a Jackson Pollock painting.
Republicans from Alabama and beyond are hoping the ruling will open the door for the Alabama Legislature to draw new boundaries that could help the party elect one or maybe even two more Republicans to the almost evenly divided U.S. House of Representatives.
This all began with Louisiana’s effort to redistrict its six Congressional districts after the 2020 U.S. Census. Approximately a third of Louisiana’s population is a racial minority, but its original map had only one district in which the largest share of its population was made up of a racial minority out of six total districts.
Critics of the map took Louisiana to federal court saying one-third of its districts should have a majority of racial minority citizens to match the population figures. If not, minority voting power would be diluted – a violation of the federal Voting Rights Act.
A federal district court judge agreed and ruled Louisiana should create a second minority-majority district. Louisiana was appealing the decision when the Supreme Court made a 2023 ruling on an Alabama redistricting case that required Alabama to create another majority-minority Congressional district.
Seeing the Alabama case decision, Louisiana gave up its fight, and its legislature created a second majority-minority Congressional district.
This led a group of “non-Black voters” – as described by the “Louisiana Illuminator” news website – to sue their home state claiming the new districts were drawn based on race, which violates numerous Supreme Court rulings saying government should avoid making decisions based on race unless there is an incredibly good reason to do so.
The Supreme Court agreed with the voter group. On April 29, it ruled Louisiana’s Congressional districts had been drawn in such a way that it was clear race was the dominant factor for the shape of the districts.
Now it’s anybody’s guess what the Supreme Court would support and what it would reject when it comes to redistricting.
Should those officials drawing the lines focus on trying to follow the Voting Rights Act’s principle against diluting racial minority voting power, or should they focus on making sure race is not the main factor when drawing a political district?
Almost immediately after the Supreme Court’s ruling, Alabama’s attorney general and secretary of state filed emergency motions to ask the Court to remove any prohibitions stopping Alabama from creating a new Congressional map.
Should those motions be granted before November, we could have a suspension of the in-progress races for Congress and possibly state senate. State senate redistricting is involved in its own lawsuit.
The state government would then have to shoehorn in special primary elections for these seats with thousands of people being moved from the districts for which they currently are assigned.
Gov. Kay Ivey added to the confusion when she said she would not call a special session for the Legislature on redistricting; she then promptly reversed herself and called for the Legislature to meet this week.
Multiple prominent Republicans at the state and federal levels are urging Alabama to go big and draw maps that could elect seven Republican representatives to Congress and shut out Democratic representation.
Whatever map the Legislature approves will not go into effect unless the Supreme Court lifts a lower court’s ruling that prevents Alabama from creating a new map before the 2030 Census results are released.
So what is going to happen? My unqualified guess is the Legislature will pass a map designed to elect seven Republicans and no Democrats to the U.S. House. However, I do not believe the Supreme Court will grant any emergency motions that would allow the new map to go into effect.
In the Louisiana case, the Supreme Court’s majority opinion points out the Alabama case dealt with a separate specific legal argument concerning the Voting Rights Act. Furthermore, granting Alabama’s legal challenge would also require the Supreme Court to throw out a redistricting map drawn by a federal court.
If an unbiased court cannot draw a fair map, then who can? The true answer might be no one.
Brandon Fincher is an academic journal editor at Auburn University. He lives in Opelika with his wife, daughter and two Labrador retrievers. You can find his writing at brandonfincher.com.
