The Supreme Court on Tuesday handed a defeat to Alabama Republicans for the second time in three months, rejecting their latest attempt to use a congressional map that includes only one majority-Black district.
The court in two related applications refused emergency requests from Republican state officials to block lower court rulings that invalidated the new map. Lower court proceedings to approve a new map are still ongoing.
The decision was in line with the Supreme Court ruling against the state in June that reaffirmed a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act. There were no noted dissenting votes and the court did not explain its reasoning.
The Supreme Court’s earlier ruling forced the state back to the drawing board. But the new map — like the previous one — includes only one district where Black voters are likely to be able to elect a candidate of their choosing. Alabama has seven congressional districts, and 27% of the state’s population is Black.
And even trying it again after being told no.
"what about… Now?
They’re not really being told “no”, though; mainly the Supreme Court is simply not taking the cases and leaving lower rulings in place. They could take one of these cases and issue a ruling that firmly shuts everything else down but they haven’t done that. One could surmise that they haven’t done that because the Federalist Society “justices” are waiting for a case with facts they like more to issue the ruling they want in a narrow way that will hurt Democrats and minorities without impacting the GOP. They’re looking for a way to tailor a ruling that prevents blue states from gerrymandering while allowing the GOP the legal right to pick their voters in red states.
And, as we’ve seen with the cases of the praying football coach and wedding website, they don’t even care if the cases are real or not as long as they can use them to navigate to the ruling they wanted to issue all along.
The Supreme Court already took this case. And to everyone’s surprise, Roberts and Kavanaugh sided with the liberals and shot down the practice of racial gerrymandering. So Alabama really is being told “no”. Again.