Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall speaks at a news conference in Montgomery, Alabama last month. The Alabama Attorney General's Office Friday filed motions in the state's congressional redistricting case with the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to consider overturning the lower court ruling for the second time after the Callais decision. (Ralph Chapoco/Alabama Reflector)
The Alabama Attorney General’s Office Friday filed motions in three separate cases seeking to lift a federal court’s injunction against the state changing congressional district lines before 2030.
The office used the same motion in the filings with the U.S. Supreme Court, requesting the justices reconsider its ruling in light of last week’s Louisiana v. Callais that significantly narrowed the scope of Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
“It is irreconcilable with Louisiana v. Callais,” the Attorney General’s Office said in the motion. “For that reason and others, Alabama is highly likely to succeed in its pending motion that this Court vacate the injunctions and remand the cases in light of Callais.”
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In the majority opinion in Callais, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the court’s ruling did not affect the opinion in Allen v. Milligan, the main Alabama redistricting case before the court.
Associate Justice Clarence Thomas set a deadline for Monday for the plaintiffs in Milligan and the two other cases to file their response to the Attorney General’s request.
Since some have already voted by absentee and with the primary election a couple of weeks away, the Attorney General’s Office is seeking the court to stay the injunction that is in place by May 14 at 10 a.m. because the justices will not have another conference until May 18, one day before the primary election is scheduled.
Friday’s request came hours after Gov. Kay Ivey signed bills allowing special primaries if the state prevails in the redistricting case. It also came on the heels of another appeal filed by the Attorney General’s Office at the end of April to have the court expedite the state’s request to overturn the 2030 injunction.
The Attorney General’s motion states that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais requires any proposed map meant to address racial discrimination in voting alleged by the plaintiffs must also consider the state’s interest. The AG’s Office added that the remedial map that the district court ordered Alabama to use, in fact, sacrifices some of the state’s interests.
“The district court forced the State to sacrifice a variety of valid goals, such as maintaining the Gulf Coast community of interest in one district, maintaining the Black Belt in two districts, and protecting incumbents,” the Attorney General’s motion states.
The remedial map also incorporated race that the U.S. Supreme Court prohibited when it wrote in the majority opinion in Louisiana v. Callais to “disentangle race from politics.”
The Attorney General’s Office also said that the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision suggests that the state did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. In Callais, Louisiana is prohibited from creating another majority-minority district.
“That’s what Alabama did, and the district court punished it—not for violating the preliminary order, but for having the gall to enact a better map, present a better record at trial, and ultimately try ‘to ‘find another argument’ to persuade’ the district court that there was no Section 2 violation,” the motion states.
Plaintiffs in the cases said that it is too late to revert to the 2023 maps because the primary election is in a couple of weeks and that absentee voting has already started. The attorney general’s motion said that was a question “for the state legislature to decide.”
A three-judge panel on Friday rejected a request filed by the Alabama Attorney General’s Office on Tuesday to stay a 2023 order permanently blocking the state from using a proposed map that court ruled had discriminated against Black voters. The court ordered a new map that included a second opportunity district for Black voters.
On Tuesday, the Attorney General’s Office requested the three-judge panel lift its injunction, indicating that the Callais decision requires the plaintiffs to prove the government had intended to create maps that are discriminatory whereas before the standard was that the maps only had to have discriminatory intent.
Based on the Callais decision, the Attorney General argued that Alabama could succeed on the merits of its case.
The plaintiffs across the three congressional redistricting cases filed a response on Wednesday and argued that it is too late to use the 2023 map that the Legislature created because it is too close to the primary election.
“Granting a stay in this case would unquestionably be wrong—harming voters, election officials, and all candidates,” the plaintiffs said in their response.
The panel cited a lack of jurisdiction, saying it had no authority to do and that only the U.S. Supreme Court could address the issues raised.
“Our injunction is the status quo in Alabama. Indeed, our districting map has been the status quo since we and the Supreme Court declined to stay it in September 2023, and pursuant to the orders of this Court, the Secretary used our districting map for Alabama’s 2024 congressional elections and is using it for the 2026 congressional elections that are occurring now,” the three-judge panel stated in its order.
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Author: Ralph Chapoco