Tuesday, the Supreme Court reportedly denied an emergency petition from Alabama, paving the way for a new congressional map that will likely include a second majority-Black district to accommodate for the state’s 27% Black population.
The short order shows that the court’s opinions haven’t changed since June, when a 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s order that the state redesign its seven-seat congressional map to include a second district with a majority of Black people.
The case has drawn attention because, following the court’s June judgment, Alabama GOP lawmakers once more authorized a congressional district design with just one district with a majority of Black people, ostensibly disobeying the Supreme Court’s directive that they provide the state’s Black inhabitants more political representation.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the 5-4 decision in June, and he received the support of the court’s three liberal members as well as fellow conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
The three-judge panel declined to postpone its decision while an appeal is ongoing.
A second district with a majority of Black people was not included in Alabama’s 2023 plan, but the state hurried to the Supreme Court and requested the court to freeze the lower court’s decision.
The state contended that it could discern between the revised map and the plan that had been declared illegal in June.
Republican Steve Marshall, the attorney general of Alabama, contended that the new map preserved communities of interest and united the state’s “Black Belt.”
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