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Alabama Republicans refuse to create second majority-Black district (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 year ago by inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

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Alabama Republicans on Monday defended their decision not to create a second majority-Black district in a hearing before a panel of federal judges over the state’s redrawn congressional maps.

State Republicans continue to resist court orders, including from the supreme court in June, to amend the congressional maps to give Black voters increased political power and representation.

Lawyers for voters called Alabama’s plan, which maintains one majority-Black district, discriminatory. Abha Khanna, an attorney representing one group of plaintiffs in the case, said Alabama chose “defiance over compliance”.

...

In response to the ruling, Alabama Republicans boosted the percentage of Black voters in the majority-white second congressional district, now represented by Republican representative Barry Moore, from about 30% to 39.9%, failing to give Black voters a majority which would allow them to elect their candidate of choice.

A lawyer for the state accused plaintiffs of seeking a “racial gerrymander” over traditional guidelines for drawing districts, such as keeping districts compact and keeping communities of interest together.

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[-] coffee_poops@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago

Just get rid of districts! They don't need to fucking exist!

[-] jordanlund@lemmy.one 5 points 1 year ago

Whatever we do, and we need to do SOMETHING, it should probably be defined by a Constitutional amendment.

Right now, you're right, congressional districts have no constitutional mandate other than "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers"

It's already been updated once thanks to that ugly 3/5ths language:

"Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed."

And again since that update only specifically mentioned male voters. :(

https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/19th-amendment

But at no point did we define HOW the congressmembers are to be selected.

[-] coffee_poops@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

Nor that there should be winner take all districts. I think reps should be based on population and then reps allotted based on the percentage of votes the party received. Each party can have their own district maps.

this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023

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