The Supreme Court upheld a ruling by a lower state court that ordered Alabama lawmakers to adopt a new map that either created two majority-Black districts, or “something quite close” to it. Instead, the Legislature approved a map with just one majority-Black district, with the next-highest Black-majority district having just under 40% of voting-age Black voters….
Attorney General Steve Marshall was also present at the Republican meeting, and expressed his thanks to the Republican-led Legislature for, at least temporarily, protecting a Republican-held congressional seat.
“I very much value the Legislature and the work that they did in this last session; it would have been very easy for them just to back down and believe they had to do something that they didn’t believe right,” Marshall said.
“Let’s make it clear, we elect a Legislature to reflect the values of the people that they represent, and I don’t think anybody in this room wanted this Legislature to adopt two districts that were going to guarantee that two Democrats would be elected.”
Marshall said that his office was looking forward to the newly-adopted map being litigated in a federal court hearing next week.