Federal judges last week ordered black legislators challenging Alabama’s legislative maps to come up with their own boundary lines. The three-judge panel Friday told the Legislative Black Caucus and the Alabama Democratic Conference to develop redistricting maps that follow the guidelines established by the Legislature in 2012. The proposal must be filed by Sept. 25. Plaintiffs have the option of filing together or creating different plans. The state will have 28 days to respond. The new proposals will not be the final word on the state’s district lines. The judges will consider the maps as part of plaintiffs’ broader argument that the 2012 map had racial biases.
“It’s an exercise, as we understand it, to help show whether the state was trying to target black percentages in each district, and thus sorting white and black voters by race,” James Blacksher, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said Tuesday. “We believe our maps will show they could have accomplished all their objectives in a way that would not have split any precincts or sorted black voters from white voters.”
The state has argued that if the plaintiffs could come up with a map like that, they would have already submitted it.
Full Article: Redistricting case: Plaintiffs must provide map proposals.