A Major Redistricting Gain in Alabama Shines Against a Setback in Louisiana and a Bipartisan Gerrymander in Ohio

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Alabama Republicans’ attempt to use a congressional map that doesn’t include a second majority-Black district for the 2024 elections. The order from the Supreme Court paves the way for Alabama to have a new, fair congressional map for 2024. 

The blocked map, enacted by the Republican-led Legislature and Republican governor, does not contain two majority-Black districts and was enacted in open defiance of a federal court order.

In June of this year, in a landmark ruling upholding Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), the Supreme Court affirmed in Allen v. Milligan that Alabama’s congressional map drawn with 2020 census data should remain blocked as it likely violated the VRA. After the Supreme Court’s decision, the case went back to the trial court so the legislature could draw a new map to include a second majority-Black district. 

However, because Alabama Republicans vehemently refused — something conservative legislators in the state perfected during desegregation — to obey a court order to pass a fair map during a special session this summer, Alabama’s new congressional map was similarly blocked earlier this month. 

In supporting his request to pause the order that blocked the map, Secretary of State Wes Allen (R) cynically opined that the “State of Alabama has been maligned as engaging in ‘open rebellion’” and shamelessly asked the Supreme Court to allow voters to vote under yet another unfair map for the 2024 election.  

This week, in a resounding victory for voters, the U.S. Supreme Court firmly denied Allen’s request. With proposed maps now submitted and the Supreme Court having denied Alabama’s request, Alabama voters, who have waited far too long for fair representation, are on their way to having a new, fair map for 2024. 

• Just before this pro-democracy decision came down, the court-appointed special master submitted three proposals for the 2024 congressional map to the court.

• A federal court has scheduled a hearing on Oct. 3 to review the special master's report and any objections to the proposed congressional districts. Following the hearing, the court will determine which congressional map Alabama will use for 2024.

Amidst this victory are two major blows to voters. 

Yesterday, in an extraordinary move that will delay the implementation of a fair map for Louisianans, an ultra-conservative majority of a three-judge panel granted Louisiana Republicans’ request to cancel a lower court hearing —  previously scheduled for Oct. 3-5 — about Louisiana’s new congressional map.

In one fell swoop, two conservative judges appointed by former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, effectively pulled the brakes on Louisiana voters’ attempt to put a fair map in place for 2024. 

The order stems from Ardoin v. Robinson, a case challenging Louisiana’s congressional map under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). In June 2022, a federal district court blocked Louisiana’s map for likely diluting the voting strength of Black Louisianans in violation of Section 2 of the VRA and ordered the state to adopt a new map with a second majority-Black district.

After the decision temporarily blocking the map was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court, Republican officials asked the district court to cancel their own hearing scheduled for Oct. 3-5, but the district court declined their request. 

Having exhausted the legal avenues available to further delay the implementation of a fair map, Louisiana Republicans filed one last Hail Mary in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Instead of appealing the order that denied their request to cancel the hearing, Republican officials filed a request for mandamus in the 5th Circuit to order the lower court to cancel its hearing. 

The conservative court granted a motion reserved for “extraordinary remedy” to further delay a long-fought battle for a map that fairly represents Black voters in Louisiana. Learn more about the stunning blow to fair representation in Louisiana here.

The second blow to voters actually came earlier in the week. The Ohio Redistricting Commission (ORC) voted unanimously to adopt new state legislative maps for the 2020 redistricting cycle. It has been more than two years since the process began. 

The move by Democrats on the ORC to support the gerrymandered maps surprised some Ohio groups working to achieve fair maps. Equal Districts and Fair Districts, two coalition groups in the state, said the “illegally gerrymandered” maps “shockingly garnered the support of the two lone Democratic commission members.” 

Democracy Docket contributor Katy Shanahan slammed the maps for their maintenance of a dangerous status quo. In her latest article, she explained, “The new bipartisan maps are still illegal partisan gerrymanders that will cement our status quo with Democrats in super-minorities, but this time potentially until 2032. They also violate five clear orders from the Ohio Supreme Court…It’s time to take away their pens and, instead, put the people into the driver’s seat of our democracy.”

To take this issue head-on in Ohio, the Citizens Not Politicians campaign is working to put a constitutional amendment measure on the November 2024 ballot to create a 15-member citizen-led, bipartisan redistricting commission. If the amendment passes in November, the new commission will redraw fair maps in 2025.

Surprise, Surprise! More Redistricting Updates 

On Tuesday, a federal trial began in the contentious legal fight over Florida’s 5th Congressional District. A federal three-judge panel will decide whether or not the elimination of a historically Black-performing district in North Florida violates the 14th and 15th Amendments’ prohibition on intentional racial discrimination. 

As one might expect, the trial has been off to a legally tenuous and absurd start. Check out this exchange below between Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ acting chief of staff, Alex Kelly, and the judges:

Throughout the course of the trial, expected to last up to eight days, the state defendants will be asserting that the map was not drawn with discriminatory intent and that the plaintiffs lack standing to request the restoration of the original district. 

• All of this comes after a state judge in a separate case already struck down the same congressional map for denying Black Floridians the opportunity to elect their candidate of choice in North Florida. In that case, DeSantis’ lawyers openly admitted the governor had violated state law. 

At the ongoing trial, the plaintiffs argue that DeSantis “hijacked the redistricting process in an unprecedented manner” and forced the Legislature to enact a map that eliminated the 5th Congressional District, which enjoyed Black representation for three decades — until 2022. 

Across the country, a state-level trial began on Wednesday in a redistricting lawsuit brought by the Republican Party of New Mexico challenging New Mexico’s congressional map for being an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. The plaintiffs argue that the new map is a partisan gerrymander that favors Democrats in violation of the New Mexico Constitution and its Equal Protection Clause. 

Ahead of the trial’s start, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) and her lieutenant governor. asked to be dismissed as defendants, which the court granted on Wednesday. 

• Grisham noted in the original defense of the new map that this is the first time since 1991 that “a congressional map was enacted through legislative policy making rather than imposed by the courts through litigation” and that it addresses the many societal and population changes that have occurred in the last three decades. 

The Republican plaintiffs are asking the court to strike down the new map and order the creation of a “partisan-neutral” map in time for the 2024 election cycle.

One Step Forward and One Step Back in the Michigan Legislature 

Yesterday, 11 Republican lawmakers in Michigan filed a lawsuit over the state’s 2018 and 2022 voter-approved ballot initiatives that expanded voting rights in the state. The GOP plaintiffs argue the enshrined amendments “are an unconstitutional usurpation of state legislator’s rights to participate in law-making decisions under the Elections Clause” of the U.S. Constitution. 

Their challenge hinges on the fringe independent state legislature theory, which claims that the Elections Clause stipulates that only state legislatures can make federal laws relating to election regulation. (This theory was largely rebuffed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2023 decision in Moore v. Harper.)

The GOP legislators are asking the court to declare the amendments in violation of the Elections Clause and further prevent the enactment of any future voter-approved amendments that would regulate federal elections. 

However, in some positive news for the Great Lakes State, the Michigan House sent five bills to expand voting access to the state Senate. The legislation would allow individuals ages 16- to 17- and a half to pre-register to vote, create an online portal to apply for a mail-in ballot and more.

It’s Actually Pronounced Eagle-Eye: All Eyes on EagleAI

A software, called EagleAI NETwork, is one of the right’s leading replacements for the Election Registration Information Center (ERIC), which has come under conspiracy-laden fire from the nine Republican states that have left the organization since early 2022. Featuring a comprehensive database full of information about voters, EagleAI claims that the program quickly combs through data and flags supposedly suspicious voter registrations. Activists can then review the flagged names and report them to election officials. 

Cleta Mitchell and her Election Integrity Network are pushing the program to activists and potential government suitors. EagleAI comes at a time when election vigilantism is on the rise in:

• Arizona, where armed vigilantes staked out drop boxes in the 2022 midterms,

• Georgia, where individual voters challenged the eligibility of tens of thousands of voters collectively and

• New York, where a group is accused of impersonating election officials and going door-to-door in 13 counties, confronting voters regarding their registration status and incorrectly accusing voters of committing a crime. 

More News

• The Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected a long-shot lawsuit seeking to block Republican lawmakers from impeaching Justice Janet Protasiewicz.

• A Pennsylvania court ordered Delaware County to count three voters' provisional ballots from the May municipal primary. The voters cast the provisional ballots after their mail-in ballots were canceled.

• The North Carolina Legislature passed Senate Bill 749, which would give the Republican-controlled Legislature the power to appoint members to state and county boards of election instead of the governor. The bill awaits Gov. Roy Cooper's (D) promised veto.

• The Mississippi Supreme Court unanimously struck down part of a new anti-democratic law that would have allowed a white official to appoint four unelected judges to a Hinds County court that oversees Jackson, which is over 80% Black.

OPINION: These Sheriffs Are Refusing To Enforce State Law

By Jessica Pishko, a Democracy Docket contributor, who writes about the criminalization of elections and how sheriffs in particular have become a growing threat to democracy. Read more ➡️

Did you know that western U.S. election officials, who have left their positions since November 2020, have taken 1,800+ years of combined experience with them? To find out more about what we can do about it, we are reading a new report from Issue One on the devastating exodus of election officials following the rise of threats and harassment.   

The study found that the turnover among chief local election officials has been particularly acute in presidential battleground states, like Arizona.

On this week’s episode of Defending Democracy, Marc and Paige speak with Democracy Docket contributor and Alliance for Justice president Rakim Brooks on much-needed and long-overdue court reform! Listen on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.