{"id":583933,"date":"2023-07-21T08:16:39","date_gmt":"2023-07-21T05:16:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/alabama-lawmakers-refuse-to-create-2nd-majority-black-congressional-district\/"},"modified":"2023-07-21T08:16:39","modified_gmt":"2023-07-21T05:16:39","slug":"alabama-lawmakers-refuse-to-create-2nd-majority-black-congressional-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/alabama-lawmakers-refuse-to-create-2nd-majority-black-congressional-district\/","title":{"rendered":"#Alabama lawmakers refuse to create 2nd majority-Black congressional district"},"content":{"rendered":"
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) \u2014 Alabama on Friday refused to create a second majority-Black congressional district, a move that could defy a recent order from the U.S. Supreme Court to give minority voters a greater voice and trigger a renewed battle over the state\u2019s political map.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers in the Republican-dominated House and Senate instead passed a plan that would increase the percentage of Black voters from about 31% to 40% in the state’s 2nd District. The map was a compromise between plans that had percentages of 42% and 38% for the southeast Alabama district. GOP Gov. Kay Ivey quickly signed it.<\/p>\n

State lawmakers faced a deadline to adopt new district lines after the Supreme Court in June upheld a three-judge panel\u2019s finding<\/a> that the current state map \u2014 with one majority-Black district out of seven in a state that is 27% Black \u2014 likely violates the federal Voting Rights Act.<\/p>\n

Voting rights advocates and Black lawmakers said the plan invoked the state\u2019s Jim Crow history of treating Black voters unfairly.<\/p>\n

Former U.S. Attorney General<\/a> Eric Holder, chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said the map, \u201cand the Republican politicians who supported it, would make George Wallace proud,\u201d referring to the segregationist former Alabama governor.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt arrogantly defies a very conservative United States Supreme Court decision … from just weeks ago,\u201d Holder said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Republicans argued that their proposal complies with the directive to create a second district where Black voters could influence the outcome of congressional elections. Opponents said it flouted a directive from the panel to create a second majority-Black district or \u201csomething quite close to it\u201d so that Black voters \u201chave an opportunity to elect a representative of their choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 140-seat Alabama Legislature has 33 Black lawmakers. All but one are Democrats.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no opportunity there for anybody other than a white Republican to win that district. It will never, ever elect a Democrat. They won\u2019t elect a Black. They won\u2019t elect a minority,\u201d said Sen. Rodger Smitherman, a Democrat from Birmingham.<\/p>\n

Republicans have been reluctant to create a Democratic-leaning district and are engaging in a high-stakes wager that the panel will accept their proposal or that the state will prevail in a second round of app<\/a>eals. Republicans argued that the map meets the court\u2019s directive and draws compact districts that comply with redistricting guidelines.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think about where we were, the Supreme Court ruling was 5-4, so there\u2019s just one judge that needed to see something different. And I think the movement that we have and what we\u2019ve come to compromise on today gives us a good shot,” House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter said.<\/p>\n

Republican Senate President Pro Tem Greg Reed said he believed the changes to the district make it a so-called opportunity district.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m confident that we\u2019ve done a good job. It will be up to the courts to decide whether they agree,\u201d Reed said.<\/p>\n

The debate in Alabama is being closely watched across the nation, and could be mirrored in fights in Louisiana, Georgia, Texas and other states.<\/p>\n

The three-judge panel ruled in 2022 that the current legislative map likely violates the federal Voting Rights Act and said any map should include two districts where \u201cBlack voters either comprise a voting-age majority” or something close. The Supreme Court concurred<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now that the plan has passed, the fight will shift quickly back to the federal court to debate whether Alabama\u2019s congressional districts comply with federal law and offer a fair opportunity to Black voters and candidates in a political landscape dominated by white Republicans.<\/p>\n

Black Alabama lawmakers say it’s crucial that their constituents have a better chance of electing their choices.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have people in my district saying their vote doesn\u2019t count, and I understand why they say that,\u201d Rep. Thomas Jackson, a Thomasville Democrat, said during debate Friday. \u201cThe person they want to elect can never get elected because they are in the minority all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Black lawmakers disputed that the changes to the 2nd District, an area with deep ties to agriculture and home to military bases, would easily become a swing district. They speculated that state Republicans were seeking to mount another challenge to federal voting law.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is designed to protect a few people and ultimately to finish off the Voting Rights Act,\u201d said Rep. Chris England, a Democratic lawmaker from Tuscaloosa.<\/p>\n

An analysis by The Associated Press, using redistricting software, shows that the 2nd District proposed Friday has mostly voted for Republicans in recent statewide elections. Donald Trump won the district by nearly 10 percentage points in his 2020 reelection bid.<\/p>\n

Experts have said the GOP proposals fall short of what the Supreme Court said last month<\/a> is required.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have pretended as though the court didn\u2019t say what it said,\u201d said Kareem Crayton, senior director for voting and representation at New York University\u2019s Brennan Center for Justice, which filed a brief supporting the plaintiffs before the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP\u2019s democracy initiative here<\/a>. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) \u2014 Alabama on Friday refused to create a second majority-Black congressional district, a move that could defy a recent order from the U.S. Supreme Court to give minority voters a greater voice and trigger a renewed battle over the state\u2019s political map. Lawmakers in the Republican-dominated House and Senate instead passed a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":583934,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/N_sWLxwIWxoX2j6G6VSgLQ--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyMDA7aD04MDA-\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/aol_associated_press_484\/6dccd3e5f0a06b3981f7c707f1dc9ac8","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-583933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}