Federal court denies Alabama request for redistricting pause: It’s ‘likely to lose on appeal’

A three-judge panel Monday denied Alabama’s request to pause the decision that struck down their new congressional map last week.

Alabama submitted a new map after the Supreme Court blocked the previous map in June for likely violating the Voting Rights Act. A trio of federal judges ruled last week that the new map fell short of complying with the Supreme Court’s directive, meaning that a court-appointed official may instead draw the redistricting lines for the 2024 cycle.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office said that it planned to appeal the case back to the Supreme Court. The state filed the motion to stay the federal court’s recent ruling Monday so that it could appeal its case before the new map would be redrawn by a court official.

The judges wrote that Marshall was “likely to lose on appeal” in its order later Monday denying the motion.

“The Secretary has lost three times already, and one of those losses occurred on appeal,” the judges wrote. “We have twice enjoined a plan that includes only one majority-Black or Black-opportunity district on the grounds that it likely dilutes the votes of Black Alabamians in violation of Section Two of the Voting Rights Act.”

The initial map had included one majority-Black district out of seven total districts, even though more than a quarter of the state population is Black.

The judges also argued that a stay order is not in the public interest of Alabama.

“The Plaintiffs — like all Alabamians — already have endured one congressional election in this census cycle that the Secretary administered under an unlawful map. We see no reason to allow that to happen again,” the judges wrote.

The judges noted that Alabama also admitted to falling short of what the Supreme Court was asking for.

“We repeat that we are deeply troubled that the State enacted a map that the Secretary readily admits does not provide the remedy we said federal law requires,” they wrote. “And we are disturbed by the evidence that the State delayed remedial proceedings but did not even nurture the ambition to provide that required remedy.”

“Under these circumstances, we cannot understand why it would be a reasonable exercise of our discretion to order a stay pending the Secretary’s second appeal,” they added.