Why Alabama's redistricting plan was blocked

Well, the Supreme Court, after they issued that landmark decision in Calais, which kind of limited the scope of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, after that decision came down-- of course, that was the case from Louisiana-- the justices sent a similar case from Alabama, a fight over those districts, back down to that federal district court panel and said, you need to rethink your decision in light of our 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. And the reason this decision is significant today is because the court concluded, after looking at Calais, the big Supreme Court decision, that it did not require a different result. This is a very convoluted, complicated legal issue that goes back several years. This federal district court panel, the one that you quoted from, had originally said and ordered Alabama to create two majority Black districts. Now we get the Calais decision, Alabama saying, oh, the court is going to make it much harder to have majority Black districts. We want to go back to one district, like we had always had. So today, the federal court panel's saying, no, you've got to stick with two because there was intentional race discrimination. And that, the Supreme Court said in Calais, is that very narrow category, where states are going to allow. Which is not constitutional, if it's intentional and clearly so.

It's unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment. And that's how this is an exception to Calais, the big decision. And that's why Justice Sotomayor made that point week before last when the court sent this case back to Alabama. And this is graphic two, 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, "Counsel," meaning State of Alabama, "argues mightily that the legislature'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."

This is an interesting point in this opinion, because, again, the panel is saying so, therefore, the original Alabama--

It's race. --Republican district with only one majority Black district, that was intentional race discrimination. And there was no evidence that it was by party to enhance the Republican standing in the state. There is some wiggle room in this decision, where Alabama could try to say, let's see if we can real quick find some more of that evidence and draw up a different plan, maybe a plan like in Tennessee, where there are all Republican districts in the state. I don't think the state is going to have time for that. And I think this decision forecloses it because it says--

Even though it's going to be appealed to the high court. Yeah, and I'm willing to bet the court's going to give this one a pass. But this it looks like Alabama is going to have two majority Black districts for this cycle. But I bet Alabama goes back to the drawing board real quick. And very quickly, South Carolina was considering redrawing the maps. It went to the State Senate. It 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 Clyburn and his district lines, familiar there have been over the years, remain. Yeah, because they don't want to dilute those Republican votes too much. They want to keep Democrats in one district, if they can, because that makes those Republican districts--

Safer. --redder 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 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 preserve. Some of those seats don't look so safe anymore.

Exactly. Jan Crawford, always great stuff. Thank you so much. Thanks