The Supreme Court makes a right decision!
Alabama has been told that they must make a second district with "something close to" a black-majority. Again.
The Supreme Court has made the decision to not allow Alabama to stall any longer.
Like a defiant child, the state legislature of Alabama kicked and screamed begging for the world to allow them to live in their white utopia! The 6-3 Republican supermajority in the courts has actually decided to discipline their own children. No longer allowing for this ignorance, they banished them from appealing and told them to make up for their long history of mistakes.
Those mistakes? Gerrymandering.
The South, Alabama especially is known for gerrymandering. It is when you change electoral district maps in order to further a certain party (or in Alabama’s case, a certain race) into being dominant within the state. Republicans love this, as it keeps them in power even when they are unpopular!
Alabama is a quarter black, yet makes up only 1/7th of House seats. This is a map of the 2018 district map, where the 7th has parts of Montgomery, Tuscaloosa, and Birmingham are all inside it. Basically, the Republican legislature has put all the cities (which is the prominent area where African Americans live) into one box. They sit atop their tiny throne, holding the seat through cheating and scummy strategy.
This is all so that the conservative sect of the country can hold on to their fleeting power. More often we are seeing these maps be competed with, such as the case here recently. The people of Alabama are no longer standing for their rights being stripped right from under them.
The Supreme Court already told them no more when they decided 5-4 and told legislatures to go back to the drawing board (literally). Yet Republicans— never content with their already wide majority— decided to continue to spend tax dollars of the working class on making sure their constituents were not represented. A classic for the losing party.
They did all this work just to be denied a foot in the door of the highest court again. Now a hearing will be held on October 3rd to decide how the redistricting will look. Of course, the losers will have tissues on hand while this is going on.
However, I think it is good to say that this is not only happening in Alabama.
Let’s take a look at Georgia: (Map from FiveThirtyEight)
If you took a glance, you would never know anything even changed. Yet everything changed.
In one simple switch, Republicans drew themselves a new district while only giving up competitiveness in another. It is simple things like this that over time, lead to legislation making it harder for the Democrats in power in these areas to be effective.
These are also being contested, along with others from Republican-controlled states across America. If they didn’t cheat, they would most definitely lose. That is most obvious from the reactions these conservatives have towards these decisions. Such as when AG Steve Marshall (Alabama) said Democrats were making a “separate but equal” doctrine by making another district.
"We will comply with the district court’s preliminary injunction order, while building our case for the 2023 map, which has yet to receive a full hearing. We are confident that the Voting Rights Act does not require, and the Constitution does not allow, “separate but equal” congressional districts." - Steve Marshall
Statements such as these are despicable and should be treated as such. Who is Steve, a white man from Alabama, to say that it is racist to make another black majority district? He wasn’t saying this when legislatures made them all white— only when the tables were turned on him and his party.
It is important that we take our wins when it comes to Alabama, but it is also important that we look around it as well. There are plenty more places that need help. That starts with awareness and ends with action.