2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Alabama

[GALeftist]

WOW! I truly did not expect this one. THANK YOU DOUG JONES!

[GALeftist]

This isn’t a big deal because it’s obviously going to be overturned on appeal

I don't think even this court is hackish enough to scrap Section 2 districts in their entirety. If they are, well, things are probably about to get very interesting in New York, I'll say that much.

[GALeftist]

If the courts Alabama ruling holds up on appeal wouldn't it set precedence that Louisiana should also have a 2nd AA seat?

And potentially South Carolina

Thing about SC is a 2nd black district is actually pretty hard just because of how black voters are distributed; a black opportunity seat based around Columbia and a slightly unpacked SC-6 is the best you can realistically get.

A better case might be made in North Carolina with the dilution of black voters in the northeast, also that was always likely to be a point of contention

[GALeftist]

Who’s the Republican who ends up replacing Sewell?

C E A S E

[GALeftist]

So SCOTUS still hasn't stayed the lower court ruling... isn't the special master supposed to redraw on Monday?

[GALeftist]

Alabama must have a final map for 2022 by the 11th. If SCOTUS does a last minute swoop (which seems increasing unlikely), things could get really scrambly and go into unprecedented territory.

For now it seems pretty likely the 2022 map will have 2 black seats, but whether the map survives the decade is another question

It is likely. Alabama might keep the 6-1 map or go 7-0.

Unsure if attempting a MillenialModerate GA type thing or what.

[GALeftist]

Hmm. Reading through Kavanaugh's concurrence, it seems like this might just be him not wanting confusion and delay right before an election since he's careful to say that he's not ruling on the merits (although I'd definitely bet on this being a Lucy with the football situation). However, Roberts's dissent does not give me much confidence that he doesn't want to seriously revise Gingles, to say the least.

[GALeftist]

Anyway, where's IndyRep for the novel length explanation of how radical and lockstep liberal justices are? Because it sure seems like there are at least five and possibly six votes on the Supreme Court to legalize literal Jim Crow racial gerrymandering.

[GALeftist]

Anyway, where's IndyRep for the novel length explanation of how radical and lockstep liberal justices are? Because it sure seems like there are at least five and possibly six votes on the Supreme Court to legalize literal Jim Crow racial gerrymandering.

Jim crow is not drawing an arm into Mobile Alabama .

I mean, you read the court order. That did not seem like a court that liked VRA districts at all to me.

[GALeftist]

Jesus christ I knew Atlas Dems were delusional but the notion that you have to gerrymander on the basis of race over any reasonable map-drawing principle is insane. Any reasonable computer-generated map has one black district. That's what is fair in AL. To argue otherwise is to argue in favor of gerrymandering, something so many Dems on here pay lip service to but have no interest in actually fighting if it would in any way harm the Democratic party.

I truly do not understand the sudden obsession with computer drawn maps on here. Not only is it dumb, it's very selectively applied. No one is advocating computer drawn maps in California or Texas for obvious reasons.

[GALeftist]

And you all thought the Dems might pick up a seat in AL out of all this litigation. Silly boys.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uQMqkLjKw1ghugljSU6N02yGbWRmMmPO/view

This was probably the most risible bit for me:

The Voting Rights Act, as understood to this point, does not require proportionality or districts that contain less than a majority of one minority group so Alabama probably is not required to draw either version.

Regarding the point that non-majority districts aren't protected, so Alabama can't be compelled to draw an "opportunity district" – OK, fair enough. The first point though is transparently bonkers. OK, so proportionality isn't required – so are *any* majority-minority districts ever required? If Alabama axed AL-07, would that also be legal? This is simply not engaging with the law as it exists.

[GALeftist]

To be honest, I thought Alabama was more likely to propose a map where at least they could configure the other 5 districts how they wanted, but this is just laughable. Not even one of those Con Twitter maps which have a Trump+2 50.1% Black district. Gonna get laughed out of court

[GALeftist]

Glad to see the AL-LEG sticking up for clear communities of interest!  Fight this one all the way back to the Supreme Court, boys! 

I'm being serious.  Kavanaugh's concurrence is quite clear that non-proportionality is ok if traditional redistricting criteria are followed (i.e., compactness, COIs, etc.)  The problem is that Alabama never advanced this argument in Milligan, instead arguing that Section 2 was unconstitutional in its entirety.  Kavanaugh didn't follow. 

Take another swing at it, argue the Legislature's map on its merits, and watch Kavanaugh reverse.  5-4 in favor of Alabama. 

This post is so wrong I frankly question how anyone who is conversational in the English language could come to this conclusion from reading the concurrence. I was honestly caught off guard. Crazy the extent to which partisanship can inspire motivated reasoning.

From the concurrence:

"Second, Alabama contends that Gingles inevitably requires a proportional number of majority-minority districts, which in turn contravenes the proportionality disclaimer in §2(b) of the Voting Rights Act... But Alabama’s premise is wrong. As the Court’s precedents make clear, Gingles does not mandate a proportional number of majority-minority districts. Gingles requires the creation of a majority-minority district only when, among other things, (i) a State’s redistricting map cracks or packs a large and “geographically compact” minority population and (ii) a plaintiff ’s proposed alternative map and proposed majority-minority district are “reasonably configured”—namely, by respecting compactness principles and other traditional districting criteria such as county, city, and town lines."

The salient part is that Kavanaugh thinks that §2 mandates VRA districts only if they are "reasonably configured." Proportionality doesn't enter into it – in fact, as Kavanaugh rightly notes, §2 is explicit that it does not require proportionality ever, per se. For Kavanaugh, all that matters for our purposes is "can you draw a reasonable majority-minority district; if so, then the minority community is entitled to elect their candidate of choice in said district." Since he thinks §2 applies in this case, we can safely infer that his answer, in this case, is yes.

DT here misidentifies the part of the concurrence which has cons all over the internet huffing hopium. The part I suspect he is looking for is "JUSTICE THOMAS notes, however, that even if Congress in 1982 could constitutionally authorize race-based redistricting under §2 for some period of time, the authority to conduct race-based redistricting cannot extend indefinitely into the future... But Alabama did not raise that temporal argument in this Court, and I therefore would not consider it at this time." But the temporal limitation thingy is a completely different argument than the one outlined here; besides, I'm not sure Kavanaugh would say the authority has already expired, just that it will someday; and, most importantly, this isn't getting up to SCOTUS within a year of Milligan, come on now.

[GALeftist]

I assumed this was a punt, but are they high on their own supply here? What is the point of this fight between the House and Senate over which non compliant map they pass? If they’re not willing to draw a proper VRA district then it doesn’t matter if they pass either (or no) plan. If they don’t want to draw out an incumbent surely it would be better to pass *any* map so that you have plausible deniability. What’s going on here? Do they really think either of these maps would pass muster?

[GALeftist]

Honestly I think the best chance for maintaining 2 Dem Reps past 2030 is a 14th Amendment racial gerrymandering claim that any 5-1 map would crack the Black Belt or Birmingham or something. The Gingles districts are just way too erose to be reasonable

[GALeftist]

I'm not endorsing this, but I found this an interesting contrary take on what the SCOTUS ruling requires and what it doesn't:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/alabamas-new-district-map-adheres-to-the-justices-ruling-allen-v-milligan-court-14a00f29?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Trash, and I suspect Mr. Shapiro knows it. His basic contention is that the new map should be allowed because it apparently keeps together both the Black Belt and the Gulf Coast. I would dispute this characterization, but it's fundamentally irrelevant to the dispute at hand in any case. The problem with the original map was not that it split the Black Belt; the problem was that it infringed on Black Alabamians' right, as defined in the VRA, to elect candidates of their choice (the VRA is silent on "communities of interest"). As such, since the map does not give those voters the ability to elect their candidates of choice, it doesn't pass muster.

The reason I say that I suspect Shapiro knows his argument is trash is because what I just outlined above isn't terribly complex, and Shapiro is, for all his faults, an intelligent man. No, I suspect the real reason for his piece is to help alleviate the cognitive dissonance of those conservatives who pivot effortlessly from righteous defense of the court's legitimacy re: affirmative action to outright contempt re: the Voting Rights Act.

[GALeftist]

Was the functionally identical 2000 map also racist?  It's demographics are functionally identical.  And it was written by Democrats.

Or did Democrats become unelectable in the 2nd and 5th because politics became nationalized?

Whether or not Democrats are only pursuing legal action now because it is only now in their self-interest to do so has no bearing on whether the maps themselves are or were illegal/racist or not.

[GALeftist]

Lol the judge is currently accusing Alabama of willfully defying the court. It's beyond Joever

[GALeftist]

https://twitter.com/DemocracyDocket/status/1699123860333797427

Lol

[GALeftist]

Again what is wrong with a map that district by district is demographically consistent with the 2000 map? 

The court's decision outlines what's wrong with it and it's freely available to all who have an internet connection!

[GALeftist]

https://twitter.com/DemocracyDocket/status/1699123860333797427

Lol

What could they possibly go over that wasn't reviewed in Allen v Milligan?

The conservative cope du jour is that Kavanaugh's concurrence actually indicated that Alabama only lost because it didn't make a very specific argument that, while the federal government might once have had the authority to mandate consideration of race with respect to redistricting, it no longer has that authority because we solved racism. To be (excessively) fair, I suspect this is true on a long enough time scale; I think Kavanaugh probably does think that at some point in the future, perhaps the near future, VRA districts should be phased out. That said, this little two-step process plays out over the course of years, not months. Cert will be denied quickly imo.

[GALeftist]

https://twitter.com/DemocracyDocket/status/1699123860333797427

Lol

What could they possibly go over that wasn't reviewed in Allen v Milligan?

The conservative cope du jour is that Kavanaugh's concurrence actually indicated that Alabama only lost because it didn't make a very specific argument that, while the federal government might once have had the authority to mandate consideration of race with respect to redistricting, it no longer has that authority because we solved racism. To be (excessively) fair, I suspect this is true on a long enough time scale; I think Kavanaugh probably does think that at some point in the future, perhaps the near future, VRA districts should be phased out. That said, this little two-step process plays out over the course of years, not months. Cert will be denied quickly imo.

I'm having an extremely difficult time seeing "Racism is Over in America" being a lie that SCOTUS would have the stomach for telling the country.   Even Kavanaugh wouldn't go that far, especially for a case regarding Alabama of all places.

I got a little cute, but that was essentially the rationale for Shelby County, when the court said that, although the nation might previously have been racist enough to justify section 4(b) of the VRA, it no longer is, so they're not going to let the infringement on federalism/equal protection slide any longer. Similarly, when they decide to get rid of section 2, I suspect that the rationale will be that 1. the Constitution is colorblind and demands that our laws also be colorblind and 2. the nation is no longer racist enough to justify section 2's being race conscious.

[GALeftist]

Just ignore Yellowhammer, he's either a fascist or too dull to understand the words he's saying