TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Paul Burch on Sep 26, 2023

The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a request by Alabama officials to halt a lower court's ruling that rejected the state's electoral map for being unlawfully biased against Black voters, reports Reuters. The court's action leaves intact a decision made on Sept. 5 by a federal three-judge panel in Birmingham which ruled that that state’s electoral map must be redrawn. That ruling was the second time the court has thrown out a plan enacted by the Republican-controlled Alabama state legislature. The panel noted in its ruling that they were "deeply troubled that the state enacted a map that the state readily admits does not provide the remedy we said federal law requires." More than one-quarter of Alabama's residents are Black. A court-appointed special master and cartographer will now oversee a new map ahead of next year's election.