Breaking down the decision as court blocks GOP-backed Alabama redistricting plan

Ajouté : 2026-05-27

[00:00:01]Welcome back. Two Republicanled redistricting plans hit roadblocks today. One political, one legal. Let's start with a political one. South Carolina state Senate has defied President Trump and is not moving forward on a newly drawn map. And a federal court has blocked redistricting in Alabama. That map was found to discriminate against black voters.

[00:00:20]Republicans say they will appeal that decision to the Supreme Court. Jan Crawford is with me to break all this down. Let's talk about Alabama first.

[00:00:27]Jan and I want to read from you the opinion released today by the US District Court Northern District of Alabama control room. This is uh if I can find it in my notes here. Quote number one.

[00:00:39]Our previous review of the undisputed evidence left us in no doubt that Alabama's legislatively enacted plan intentionally discriminated based on race in violation of the Constitution.

[00:00:51]Our re-examination in light of Kea yields the same conclusion. That's super important. in that last sentence is it not?

[00:00:58]>> Well, the Supreme Court after they issued that landmark decision in Cala which kind of limited the scope of section two of the voting rights act um after that decision came down of course that was a case from Louisiana. The justices uh sent a similar case from Alabama uh a fight over those districts back down to that federal district court panel and said you need to rethink your decision uh in light of our you know landmark ruling. That's very common. The court does that all the time when it has a major decision that kind of changes our thinking on the law. Um, and the reason this decision is significant today is because the court concluded after looking at KA the the big Supreme Court decision that did not require a different result. This is a very convoluted, complicated legal issue that goes back several years. Um, this federal district court panel, the one that you quoted from, uh, had originally said and ordered Alabama to create two majority black districts. Right now, we get the Cala decision. Alabama saying, "Oh, the court is going to make it much harder to have majority black districts.

[00:01:56]We want to go back to one district like we had always had." So today, the federal court panel saying, "No, you've got to stick with two because there was intentional race discrimination." And that the Supreme Court said in Kai, is um kind of that very narrow category uh where constitutional if it's intentional and clearly so >> it's unconstitutional under the 14th amendment. And that's how this is an exception to Kala that the big decision and that's why justice Sotomayor uh made that point uh week before last when the the court sent this case back to Alabama >> and this is a graphic too control room because this is important because the Supreme Court has also said look partisan motives are fine in redistricting matters we're not going to get involved in that. So graphic number two council meaning state of Alabama argues mightily that the legislaturator's partisan motive drove the creation of the 2023 plan. That's the one you just referenced. But this enormous record contains no evidence of a partisan motive.

[00:02:56]>> Okay. This is an interesting point in this opinion. Um because again the panel is saying so therefore the the original Alabama Republican district with only one majority black district that was intentional race discrimination. Um and there was no evidence that it was by party to to enhance the Republican standing in the state. There is some wiggle room in this decision where Alabama could try to say okay let's see if we can real quick find some more of that evidence and drop a different plan.

[00:03:26]Maybe a plan like in Tennessee where there are all Republican districts in the state. I don't think the state's going to have time for that and I think this decision forecloses it uh because it says >> even though it's going to be appealed to the high court.

[00:03:38]>> Yeah. And I I I'm willing to bet the court's going to give this one a pass.

[00:03:42]But this it looks like Alabama's going to have two majority black districts for this cycle. But I bet Alabama goes back to the drawing board real quick.

[00:03:50]>> And very quickly, South Carolina was considering redrawing the maps. It went to the state senate. had to make a conclusion on that. Today the state senate said no, we're going to leave the lines as they are. Which means Jim Klyburn and his district lines familiar they have been over the years remain.

[00:04:03]>> Yeah. Because they don't want to dilute those Republican votes too much. Right.

[00:04:07]They want to kind of keep Democrats in one district if they can because that makes those Republican districts redder.

[00:04:13]And that's what you're going to see in Louisiana. That's why they're going to keep New Orleans a majority black district instead of, you know, saying we're going to try to draw all Republican districts in that state >> because sometimes when you do that, you endanger more Republicans than you deserve.

[00:04:27]>> Some of those seats don't look so safe anymore.

[00:04:29]>> Exactly. Jan Crawford, always great stuff. Thank you so much. Six.