2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Alabama

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Will Republicans still try and be sneaky and try to include either super low turnout black communities/prisons with super red and high turnout white suburbs so one of the black seats is in practice a swing seat, or do they just do a straightforward 5-2 map to avoid further risk of legal action?

I will refer you to this post:

https://twitter.com/tekken_guy/status/1667326977882177541
It’s possible to make a Black-majority LA-05 as close as Biden+4. Cassidy won this seat and someone like Letlow can pull a Gerald Greene and hold it as long as she wants.

Maps like this are put up a lot by DRA users on twitter and atlas on how to "cheat" the VRA ruling, but pretty much never pass through the court and become reality.

The whole point of a VRA section 2 district is that the voters of the minority race can reliably elect the candidate of their choice, especially if the opposition bloc votes against the minority race, which is definitely the case in Louisiana and Alabama.

The lawyers know this, the courts know this, the politicians know this, it just won't happen.

Thomas v. Bryant is the most relevant precedent, which struck down Mississippi State Senate district 22. It was 51% BVAP but consistently elected a Republican, namely Appropriations committee chairman Buck Clarke. It achieved this by combining high turnout white Jackson exurbs with the low turnout Delta. In spite of what gop twitter might think, context matters more than gerrymandered BVAP and it was struck down by the district courts and by the 5th circuit. (rather than stay and fight, Buck Clarke would run for Treasurer, and lose the primary 38-62 lol.)

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Reminder, the real effect of us not seeing anything emerge from the special session is this just takes another month to get a final map, only this time via courts and masters. Every time in federal court partisans throw away the one opportunity at drawing a map most but not all of their incumbents will like - no matter if its out of principle or an attempt to dissuade action - they end up getting screwed when the court makes changes to districts politicians would never have. Yes this history also includes a good deal of Dem-drawn maps across the south which ran afoul of Racial Gerrymandering suits 1-3 decades ago.

It almost feels like they do this on purpose at times, they’d rather not lose face by capitulating themselves, instead forcing the courts to do it for them. Perhaps in cases like Alabama they’d also rather the courts do the dirty work of screwing over an incumbent while they keep their hands clean.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Greater Birmingham should only have 2 safe R state senate seats, it doesn't make any sense to do 4 unless you're consciously using race-based gerrymandering like what we have now to unnaturally minimize black Democratic representation in favor of white.
You have to split Jefferson County seven ways and dilute strongly black, democratic areas in order to unfairly create more republican districts.

Montgomery County doesn't need a white-majority seat, if the white community needs a white senator (since it seems racial nationalism is good when majorities do it), they should get behind a white Democrat.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

The mid-term redistricting should help the Democrats. With the new district first up in 2024 instead of 2022 they’ll get the presidential turnout boost for whoever wins the primary. The incumbent can then be fully entrenched for the 2026 midterms.