February 14, 2022 Group Watch: Supreme Court Sides with GOP in Alabama Election Map Case
The U.S. Supreme Court put on hold a lower court ruling saying that Alabama must draw new congressional districts before the 2022 elections to increase Black voting power. The court order boosts Republican chances to hold six of the state’s seven seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The court’s action, by a 5-4 vote, means the upcoming elections will be conducted under a map drawn by Alabama’s Republican-controlled legislature, a map that contains one majority-Black district, represented by a Black Democrat, in a state in which more than a quarter of the population is Black. The justices will at some later date decide whether the map produced by the state violates the landmark voting rights law, a case that could call into question previous precedent. The decision will presumably govern elections in 2024 through the end of the decade in Alabama and could affect minority political representation elsewhere in the country.
