Allen v. MilliganAlabama’s redistricting case that’s now in the Supreme Court for three timeit is a facepalm, covered in head desk, covered in some of the most incompetent legislation that has ever been presented to judges. If Alabama Republicans have any sense, they will fire all their attorneys.
About a month ago, the Supreme Court decided Louisiana vs. Callaisremoving the Federal Voting Rights Act’s protections against legal maps that disenfranchise voters in the process. Callis effectively repealed the 1982 amendment to the VRAwhich banned many state laws that have an adverse effect on non-white voters, even if those laws were not designed with racial intent.
After Callisa plaintiff challenging state legislative maps on the basis of race can only prevail “when the circumstances give rise to intentional discrimination.”
As a practical matter, this is a very difficult hurdle for voting rights plaintiffs to overcome. Lawyers and judges are not mind readers. And state legislators are usually not stupid enough to say clearly that they drew certain maps a particular way because they wanted to increase white power and reduce the voting power of non-white voters.
And yet, Alabama’s Republican-controlled legislature was able to enact restrictive legislation that publicly praises the behavior of European Americans in much of the state.
Allen it turns on the congressional maps that the government approved in the 2023 law, but which has It has never been used in an election. Most of the cases turn on the law enforcement for two regions in the state: Alabama’s Gulf Coast region, and the state’s Black Belt.
Although the Black Belt is named after the dark colored soil in the area, it has a the majority of the African population because many enslaved people were brought to the Black Belt before the Civil War. The Gulf Coast region, meanwhile, is predominantly white. As a decision of the lower court which featured the 2023 maps states, the maps keep the “entire Gulf Coast,” while dividing the Black Belt in a way that keeps its majority Black voters from becoming a predominantly white district.
The mere fact that Alabama broke the Black Belt while keeping the Gulf Coast intact doesn’t compromise its maps, at least not under Callis. That decision is very good for gerrymandering, and allows states to draw maps that reduce Black representation so long as the government claims that it is doing so to reduce the votes of the Democrats.
But here’s the rub: The 2023 Act doesn’t just keep the predominantly white Gulf Coast intact; it also praises the region’s “collective culture” which stems from “from its French and Spanish colonial heritage.” France and Spain are, of course, European countries made up of white people.
The state legislature, in other words, didn’t just give the Gulf Coast better treatment than it did the Black Belt. It clearly referred to Gulf European culture when it did so. That certainly raises a strong presumption that intentional discrimination occurred!
Will that be enough to convince this Supreme Court to rule against Alabama’s maps? Who knows? More recent court decisions seem designed to allowing states to draw whatever maps they wantwithout any federal court oversight. And the decision to favor Alabama’s 2023 maps will also benefit the Republican Party.
Six of the nine Supreme Court seats are held by Republicans.
But, even after Callisone of the few things states should not be allowed to do is draw maps with the express purpose of favoring European Americans, while at the same time disfavoring African Americans. And yet Alabama maps cannot clear even this very low bar.
