A fresh wave of redistricting fights is sweeping the South following the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision weakening the Voting Rights Act.
On Tuesday, a panel of three federal judges blocked Alabama from using a congressional map that would eliminate one of the state's two majority-Black U.S. House districts, a setback for Republican efforts to oust a Democratic incumbent in November's midterm elections. Read the order.
Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court granted the state's request to lift the lower court's prior ruling blocking Alabama from using the map but ordered the three-judge panel to reconsider its findings in light of the Voting Rights Act decision, which raised the bar for challenging congressional maps on the basis of race. But the panel said it had reached the same conclusion: that the map purposefully and unlawfully targeted Black voters.
Tennessee and Louisiana have each dismantled a majority-Black U.S. House seat, while South Carolina’s Republican-controlled Senate rejected a new congressional map aimed at flipping Democratic U.S. Representative James Clyburn's seat, a rare rebuke to President Trump from members of his own party.
Earlier this month the Supreme Court rejected a bid by Virginia Democrats to revive a voting map designed to help their party wrest control of the U.S. House of Representatives from Republicans.
