SOUTH UNION STREET

Redistricting case: Plaintiffs must provide map proposals

Brian Lyman
Montgomery Advertiser

Federal judges last week ordered black legislators challenging Alabama’s legislative maps to come up with their own boundary lines.

The three-judge panel Friday told the Legislative Black Caucus and the Alabama Democratic Conference to develop redistricting maps that follow the guidelines established by the Legislature in 2012.

The proposal must be filed by Sept. 25. Plaintiffs have the option of filing together or creating different plans. The state will have 28 days to respond.

The new proposals will not be the final word on the state's district lines. The judges will consider the maps as part of plaintiffs' broader argument that the 2012 map had racial biases.

“It’s an exercise, as we understand it, to help show whether the state was trying to target black percentages in each district, and thus sorting white and black voters by race,” James Blacksher, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said Tuesday. “We believe our maps will show they could have accomplished all their objectives in a way that would not have split any precincts or sorted black voters from white voters.”

The state has argued that if the plaintiffs could come up with a map like that, they would have already submitted it.

“We continue to hold to the position we raised in court that the plaintiffs have had more than enough time to offer alternative redistricting maps and have failed to do so,” Mike Lewis, a spokesman for Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange, said in a statement Tuesday.

The plaintiffs will have to develop maps that preserve incumbents, minimize county and precinct splits and do not reduce the state’s 27 majority-minority House districts and eight Senate districts.

The proposed maps will also have to use the strict population standard used by legislators in 2012 to draw the maps. The original map framers tried to keep black population in the new districts within one percent of the ideal legislative population.

That standard is at the heart of the dispute. The plaintiffs argue the strict standard led to “packing and stacking” of black voters within the majority-minority districts, making it difficult to enter coalitions with like-minded white voters and muting the voice of black citizens in the Democratic process.

Republicans who drew the maps said they were trying to abide by the conditions of the Voting Rights Act, and said they wanted to preserve the majority-minority districts, most of which lost population between 2001 and 2010.

Attorneys for the state said in oral arguments before the judges last week that following the VRA was essential and that the plaintiffs had failed to prove racial motivation in drawing the districts. The plaintiffs said the high percentage of minority voters in the areas – more than 70 percent in some districts – was not necessary for black voters to pick the leaders of their choice.

The judges ruled in 2013 that the Legislature’s map did not violate the Voting Rights Act. The U.S. Supreme Court remanded the case back to the panel last March, saying the judges needed to reconsider how race affected the maps.

The judges indicated at the Aug. 25 hearing that they saw issues with the 2012 map. But they also said they would challenge the plaintiffs to come up with their own proposals.

Blacksher said he expected the maps to be completed within two weeks. “The maps are probably going to be ready before the lawyers can get their briefs together,” he said.