From today’s CBS News:
Federal judges on Thursday selected new congressional lines for Alabama to give the Deep South state a second district where Black voters comprise a substantial portion of the electorate.
The three-judge panel for the U.S. district court in Alabama ordered the state to use the new lines in the 2024 elections. The judges stepped in to oversee the drawing of a new map after ruling last month that Alabama lawmakers flouted their instruction to fix a Voting Rights Act violation and create a second majority-Black district or something “quite close to it.”
The three-judge panel selected one of three plans proposed by a court-appointed expert that alters the bounds of Congressional District 2, now represented by Republican Rep. Barry Moore, in southeast Alabama, who is White. The district will now stretch westward across the state. Black voters will go from comprising less than one-third of the voting-age population to nearly 50%.
Selection of the new district lines follows a long legal fight that began after redistricting process undertaken by the Republican-led state legislature following the 2020 Census.
The Supreme Court in June upheld the three-judge panel’s finding in January 2022 that Alabama’s prior map — with one majority-Black district, Congressional District 7, out of seven in a state that is 27% Black — likely violated the federal Voting Rights Act. The three judges said the state should have two districts where Black voters have an opportunity to elect their preferred candidates.
Read the complete story here.