Every elected official we talked to while the redistricting process was underway in 2021 told us that regardless of the outcome, the maps that were adopted would probably undergo legal challenges. Well, like the old adage about looking at a hot horse shoe, that didn’t take long.
Public hearings on reapportionment were held at 10 different public colleges during the month of September. The newly drawn maps were revealed and voted on in a Second Special Session of the Alabama Legislature in late 2021.
A three-judge federal panel late Monday [January 24] blocked Alabama’s new congressional district map from going into effect, ruling that challengers were “substantially likely” to prevail in their arguments that the plan violated the Voting Rights Act (VRA).
In a 225-page decision, the judges found that Black Alabamians had “less opportunity than other Alabamians to elect the candidates of their choice to Congress.” The congressional map as approved preserves a nearly 30-year plan of having a single majority-minority congressional district, the 7th in west Alabama.
This breaking news was first reported by the Montgomery Advertiser and the Tuscaloosa News. We will have more information in our next edition and as the story progresses.
