By John Kruzel
WASHINGTON, May 8 (Reuters) – Alabama Republicans asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to clear the way for the state to pursue a congressional voting map more favorable to their party ahead of November’s midterm elections in the latest fallout from the justices’ recent seismic voting rights ruling.
The state officials asked the justices to lift a lower court’s order requiring Alabama to use a map that includes two majority-Black districts out of seven. Both are held by Black Democrats.
Alabama is among a group of Republican-led states now seeking to eliminate majority-Black congressional districts and boost their party’s chances ahead of the elections following the Supreme Court’s April 29 decision gutting a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act.
President Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans are fighting to maintain control of the House, as well as the Senate, in the midterm elections.
The court, in a 6-3 ruling powered by its conservative members, struck down an electoral map that had given Louisiana a second Black-majority U.S. congressional district. The redrawn map, the majority ruled, had relied too heavily on race in violation of the constitutional equal protection principle.
The decision makes it harder for minorities to challenge electoral maps as racially discriminatory under the Voting Rights Act without direct evidence of racist intent.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in Friday’s filing that the court should reach the same outcome in this case.
“Alabama’s case mirrors Louisiana’s, and they should end the same way: with this year’s elections run with districts based on lawful policy goals, not race,” Marshall wrote.
Alabama was ordered by a lower court to add a second majority-Black district — or close to it — to its congressional map after the court found that a Republican-drawn map with just one such district likely violated the Voting Rights Act.
Black voters, who make up a quarter of Alabama’s electorate, tend to support Democratic candidates.
(Reporting by John Kruzel; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Nick Zieminski, Rod Nickel)
