Court picks Alabama congressional map likely to mean Democratic gain

A panel of three federal judges on Thursday chose a new Alabama congressional map that creates a second Black-majority district in the state and that will probably flip one House seat for Democrats in 2024.

The new map is the end - for now - of a lengthy legal battle that pitted Alabama’s Republican-led legislature against Democrats and civil rights groups that argued that Republicans were illegally diluting the power of Black voters in the state. About 27 percent of the state’s voting population is Black.

The case has been closely watched because of an array of challenges to congressional maps advancing in courts throughout the country that could give one political party or the other an advantage heading into the 2024 elections.

The same panel of judges rejected a map last month that the state’s Republican-led legislature redrew in July, saying it did not follow a court order backed by the U.S. Supreme Court to comply with the Voting Rights Act.

The judges in the Alabama case directed a special master and cartographer to create three proposed remedial maps to be filed by Sept. 25.

“We do not take lightly federal intrusion into a process ordinarily reserved for the State Legislature. But we have now said twice that this Voting Rights Act case is not close,” the judges wrote in the order then. “And we are deeply troubled that the State enacted a map that the State readily admits does not provide the remedy we said federal law requires.”

Late last month, the Supreme Court for a second time refused Alabama’s attempt to hold 2024 elections under a new congressional map judged to be an unlawful attempt to diminish the power of the state’s Black voters.

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Robert Barnes contributed to this report.