MONTGOMERY — The same day federal judges in Alabama struck down the state’s proposed congressional maps for lacking equitable representation of Black voters, federal judges in Georgia began hearing arguments in a similar case.

Challenges to both maps assert that redistricting maps approved by the state legislatures in 2021 violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

In part, the act states that a violation occurs if it’s shown that the “political process leading to nomination or election in the state of political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens … in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.”

Federal judges shut down Alabama’s proposals, twice

In the 2020 census, 27%, or more than one in four, of Alabama residents identified as Black, and only one out seven of the state’s congressional districts were Black.

Following the approval of an updated Republican-backed proposal in 2021, challengers alleged in lawsuit immediately after that the proposal violated the VRA by packing Black voters into District 7 — which includes Birmingham — comprising it of 55% of the Black voter-age population.

The map also split the Black population in Mobile, Montgomery and the Black Belt into districts 1, 2 and 3 with Black voter-age population of 30% or less.

Subsequently, judges in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama-Southern Division ordered the state to remedy the 2021 proposal by including an additional majority-Black district, or an additional “opportunity district,” where Black voters have an opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice.

Alabama lawmakers, along party lines, approved a map (SB 5) in July that keeps one congressional district with a 50% Black voter-age population and only slightly increases that same population in a second district.

The 2023 plan keeps Mobile and Baldwin counties together in District 1 and combines much of the the Black Belt — named for its fertile Black soil and heavy Black population which stems from slavery — in Districts 2 and 7.

In the 2023 Plan, the Black voter-age population in District 7 is 50.65%, compared to 55.3% in the plan approved by lawmakers in 2021. District 2 had the second largest B voter-age population, at approximately 40%, compared to 30.6% in the 2021 Plan.

Plaintiffs argued that the 2023 is still racially gerrymandered, and that increasing the second district to a nearly 40% Black voter-age population still does not offer a greater opportunity for Black Alabamians to elect their preferred candidate.

However, the state has affirmed its 2023 map proposal, stating that it prioritized keeping together three communities of interest — the Black Belt, the Gulf Coast and the Wiregrass — in those southern state districts by following “traditional districting” principles of compactness, county lines and communities of interest.

“The law requires the creation of an additional district that affords Black Alabamians, like everyone else, a fair and reasonable opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. The 2023 Plan plainly fails to do so,” U.S. District Court Judges Stanley Marcus, Anna Manasco and Terry Moorer, stated in a Sept. 5 ruling.

The order notes that the state explained its position that the district court and Supreme Courts affirmance of the federal district court’s previous ruling that the legislature was not required to include an additional opportunity district.

The state has also argued against using race as a sole basis for redistricting.

In a response to plaintiff’s objections to the 2023 plan, Alabama Attorney General SteveMarshall said that neither the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama-Souther Division nor the U.S. Supreme Court has ever said that Section 2 requires the state to subordinate “nonracial communities of interest.”

He said that assigning voters on the basis of race is unconstitutional and creates the “offensive and demeaning assumption that voters of a particular race, because of their race, ‘think alike, share the same political interests and will prefer the same candidates at the polls.’”

The court said it wouldn’t provide the legislature “with a second bite at the apple” in redrawing another map. Instead, the court has appointed a “special master,” Richard Allen, to do so. He will be assisted by cartographer David Ely and Michael Scodro and his law firm, Mayer Brown LLP.

Georgia district court judge hears similar arguments

In the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia-Atlanta Division, judge Steve Jones on Tuesday, Sept. 5, heard arguments against the state’s congressional, state house and state senate district maps that were approved by the Republican-dominant legislature in 2021.

Opponents of Georgia’s new maps have argued that the maps drawn after the 2020 census continue to give Republicans an advantage, although the state’s population grew 10% — by 1 million people — since 2010, and all of it in minority populations, which typically vote Democrat. 

The 2020 census results indicate that Georgia’s Black population grew by more than 15% and now comprises 33% of Georgia’s total population.

Currently, five of 14 of the state’s congressional districts are held by Democrats, as Republicans gained a district in the 2022 election under the map.

However, a lawsuit filed in December 2021 by a group of metro Atlanta voters after the enactment of new maps argued that rather than create an additional congressional district in the western Atlanta metropolitan area where Georgia’s growing Black population would have the opportunity to elect candidates of its choice, the Georgia General Assembly did just the opposite.

The lawsuit alleged that the 2021 map packs Black voters into the new 13th Congressional District, which includes significant Black populations in south Fulton, Douglas and Cobb Counties. The remaining Black communities in Douglas and Cobb Counties are split among the new 3rd, 14th, 11th, and 14th Congressional Districts—predominantly white districts that stretch into the rural reaches of western and northern Georgia.

“The General Assembly could have instead created an additional, compact congressional district in which Black voters, including plaintiffs, comprise a majority of eligible voters and have the opportunity to elect their preferred candidates, as required by Section 2 of the Voting Rights Ac,” the lawsuit states. 

State officials have argued against using race as a factor in the redistricting and have pointed to the historic Democrat victories in 2020-21 when Georgia U.S. senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock prevailed in seats previously held by Republicans. Democrat President Joe Biden also won majority of the votes in Georgia in 2020 despite being a historically Republican state.

Bryan Tyson, an attorney for the state, indicated during the Tuesday hearing that Georgia’s maps were drawn to protect incumbents and to prioritize Republican majorities, according to the Associated Press. Tyson also argued that recent voting behavior shows party, not race, is the most important factor motivating voters.

“You can’t presume race when partisanship is an equally plausible explanation,” Tyson said to the Associated Press.

In the merged court case, Jones is also hearing arguments against the new state House and state Senate maps that were approved in 2021.

The GOP currently holds a 102-78 majority in the state House and a 33-23 majority in the state Senate. 

Plaintiffs, which includes civil rights groups, argue that the legislature could have added three more majority-Black state Senate districts and five additional majority-Black state House districts in various parts of the state to mirror the Black population growth.  

Ultimately, Jones will decide whether to send Georgia lawmakers back to the drawing board for a special session ahead of the 2024 election, in which all of the state’s 14 congressional seats, state House and state Senate seats will be chosen by voters.