A map of the GOP proposal to redrawn Alabama’s congressional districts is displayed at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Alabama, on Tuesday, July 18, 2023.
Kim Chandler | AP
The state of Alabama asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to block a lower court order blocking the state from using the controversial congressional district map for the 2026 midterm elections.
The order prevented the map presented in 2023 from being used for upcoming congressional elections in Alabama because it would dilute the Black vote.
The state’s request to the Supreme Court came a day after it reiterated an earlier ruling by a three-judge panel in the U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Ala., that found the 2023 map “intentionally discriminates on the basis of race in violation of the Constitution.”
“We again cannot regard the 2023 plan as anything other than intentionally discriminatory,” the panel’s decision said. Two judges on the panel were appointed by President Donald Trump.
The Supreme Court had directed the panel to revisit the question of whether the maps could be used for the November elections in light of the high court’s recent decision in a case called Louisiana v. Calais, which found that Louisiana’s drawing of its own congressional maps was a racial gerrymander.
“The stay is necessary so that Alabama is not again prevented from using its legislatively enacted 2023 plan, which disregards Calais, to circumvent Purcell,” Alabama said in its emergency application to the Supreme Court seeking a stay of the panel’s order. principles, and insults the Constitution’s promise of equal protection for all.”
The Purcell doctrine is the idea that a court should not change the rules of an election too close to the date of that contest.
““Calais affirmed Alabama’s position on the legality of the 2023 plan, yet the district court decided in a week that Calais changed nothing,” the state said in its filing.
The state said, “Worse, the district court doubled down on its constitutional assumption, which has no place in our Constitution: Alabama knowingly discriminated by refusing to discriminate.” “District court blames state for denying ‘opportunity’ to minority voters and ‘diluting’ votes, without acknowledging how Callais itself contradicted the district court’s pre-Calais holding on that score.”
Alabama asked the Supreme Court to issue a decision on its request by next Monday, June 1.
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