A three-judge U.S. District Court in Alabama has set a deadline for briefs in the lawsuit challenging the boundaries of 28 State House districts and 8 State Senate districts. All the briefs are to be in by August 7, 2015. Then, the judges will decide whether further oral argument is needed. This is the case in which the U.S. Supreme Court decided earlier this year that Alabama’s legislative redistricting plan may violate the 14th amendment. The Supreme Court had sent the case back to the U.S. District Court. The plaintiffs, the Alabama Legislative Black Caucus and the Alabama Democratic Conference, argue that the redistricting plan diminishes African-American voting strength by packing too many African-American voters into a minority of districts, so that the number of districts influenced by such voters is too limited.
If the 3-judge district court strikes down the plan, there would likely be special legislative elections in 2016. Normally Alabama wouldn’t have any legislative elections in a presidential election year, because all seats have 4-year terms and are up in mid-term years.
Does this mean that all of the Alabama Senatorial and House districts would have to be re-held in 2016 or just certain districts?
Just certain ones. But it’s quite a few districts.
In 2001, the Democrats still had a majority in the legislature, and they underpopulated the majority-black legislative districts. This resulted in neighboring areas which had a large black population to be placed in districts that might elect a white Democrat. But over the decade these white Democrats had become white Republicans, or retired or defeated, and the Republicans had gained control.
Meanwhile, most of the population growth occurred in suburban areas which were whiter, while the majority black districts had a decline in population. The suburban areas had an increase in black population share (say from 5% to 8% in 2000, to 8% to 12%). That is, the the growth was a result of both white and black flight from the inner cities.
The majority-black senate districts had to add about 18% to get to the average population. For the most part, districts that are 60% or 70% black are not immediately adjacent to areas that are 5% or 10% black, but more likely 20% or 30% black. So as you move areas into the majority-black districts, this tends to lower the black percentage of the intermediate districts, since they in turn need to take population from the whiter districts.
The legislature in 2012 decided to reduce the amount of inequality among districts to 1%. They did so to counteract the Democrat gerrymander of the 2000s. In addition, they tried to maintain the black percentage of the majority-black districts, in order to placate the federal bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.
The 3-judge panel that heard the case decided that the increased level of equality, and desire to placate the federal bureaucrats justified the redistricting plan.
The plaintiffs claimed that having equal population districts was discriminatory. The SCOTUS was too embarrassed to take that issue on, saying that it was a given that the legislature would try to equalize population; and so the constitutional concern was that the legislature had spent to much effort to placate the federal bureaucrats.
If you go back to the 2001 boundaries and then start equalizing population, you aren’t going to get dramatically different districts. It’s conceivable that a court might say that it doesn’t matter for 2016.
The Alabama Constitution says that senate districts may not split counties. In ‘Reynolds v Sims’ half a century ago, the SCOTUS said that the Alabama legislative districts violated one man, one vote because of this (and the fact that Alabama had not bothered to reapportion since 1900).
Under a literal interpretation of the Alabama constitution, Jefferson County would have one senator. The 7 largest counties would have 7 senators rather than 16.5; and the remaining 60 counties would share 28 senators rather than 18.5.
So instead, counties have been split among senate districts. In the 2000s, 30 counties were split. One effect of reducing the threshold for near equality, is that the number of split counties may increase. And in the latest redistricting they have increased to 34. So while the constitution says that no county may be split, a majority of the counties are.
The Democrats are now arguing that if threshold of equality were increased to 5%, fewer counties would be split. This is true, though when the Democrats were drawing the lines, they were apparently not concerned (do as I say, not as I do).
But they want to provide a justification for a broader redo of the entire map. But if you take the constitutional provision about not splitting counties seriously their proposed map is quite poor. It is conceivable that the federal court might decide to interpret the Alabama constitution. But they might want to defer to the Alabama Supreme Court which has 50 years to do so, and hasn’t done so. Such an interpretation would result in a complete remap of the state, but might take more time in litigation such that it wouldn’t happen until 2018.