Six Supreme Court justices, both liberal and conservative, did not buy the case made by the state of Alabama that the court should overturn 40 years of precedent and gut the Voting Rights Act.
In questioning Alabama's argument, it appeared that the court's conservatives may stop short of explicitly gutting the Voting Rights Act, as Alabama requested in its brief, but instead effectively gut it by making it even harder to prove that a racial minority is a geographically compact community.
The Voting Rights Act requires states to take race into account when drawing legislative district maps.
Black Alabamians, who make up 27% of the state's population, sued the state after Republicans drew a congressional district map with only one black majority seat. The Black Belt is named for its fertile soil and home to the descendants of enslaved people who worked the region's plantations.
A district court panel, including two judges appointed by former President Donald Trump and one by Bill Clinton, ruled that the state must draw a new map with a second black majority seat for the 2022. The court said that the lawsuit was not likely to succeed on their Section Two claims.
The Supreme Court approved a test to determine if a new majority-minority seat is required to be drawn. The court approved this test in 1986.
Section 2 must show that the minority population must be sufficiently large to live in a geographically compact region. The minority population has to vote as a bloc. In this case, the majority population votes cohesively as a bloc that will always defeat the minority's preferred candidate, because of the way the majority population is politically divided.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case. The handout is courtesy of
Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill appealed to the Supreme Court after the district court panel ruled in his favor. Alabama wants the court to approve a test that doesn't consider race often. The test would require states to draw the average number of majority-minority districts that do not factor in race.
The justices questioned Alabama's position on Tuesday.
The justices were not sure what Alabama wanted the court to do.
The question is, what is the problem. Justice Jackson asked if it was possible. We have to figure out if you are saying that we need to change Gingles in a fundamental way or if you are saying that they didn't meet the Gingles test.
The benchmark that Alabama proposes for a race-blind standard has never been recognized by this court.
LaCour didn't answer the question in both instances.
LaCour refused to say that the state's argument that Gingles be overturned or rewritten was true.
LaCour said it would be easier to resolve the case on narrower grounds than the state made in its brief to the court.
LaCour wanted Justice Samuel Alito to argue for him. Alito said that Alabama wants the court to make it harder to bring Section 2 cases by enabling limitations on the way courts define a geographically compact community in Gingles.
LaCour said yes.
Other conservative justices were confused by LaCour's argument.
The case was seen by justices as an argument for revising Gingles. He wanted LaCour to argue why the court should redefine the geographic compactness of political communities in Section 2 cases.
Justice Amy ConeyBarrett said she was trying to narrow down what she was talking about.
It doesn't mean the court's conservatives will reject the state's arguments.
The conservative justices agreed to take up the case after blocking the panel's decision. The Chief Justice wanted the court to allow the new map to be implemented but wanted the court to hear arguments on the case.
The court's conservatives have always been against race-conscious policies. Roberts was a staffer in Ronald Reagan's Department of Justice and worked to oppose the re-authorization of the Voting Rights Act. He decided to gut the act in the same case.
The court conservatives might side with Alabama. It will lead to a reduction in political representation for Black and Latino people. A study of the race-blind approach Alabama wants the court to adopt found that it would yield substantially fewer districts where minorities are able to vote.
Up to ten Black majority districts could be eliminated in Alabama.
The article was first published on HuffPost.
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