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It appears that the website is not functioning correctly. On June 8th, the U.S Supreme Court made an unexpected and victorious decision to strike down the map of Alabama’s seven congressional districts for being illegally gerrymandered. This map was drawn in a way that favored one political party, the Republicans, and was visually obvious, as one district even looked like a dolphin.
When the map was compared to one that showed Alabama’s black population, it became clear that one district had most of the black population. This was a violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which broadly forbids denying the right to vote on account of race. The Supreme Court’s decision left this pillar of the Voting Rights Act intact, and was a surprise as two of the conservative justices voted with the liberals.
The reason this decision is such a big deal is because of its implications outside of Alabama. When the population of the state is one-third African-American, simple math and fairness dictates that two of those districts need to be minority districts. If one of the seats changes parties, that creates a margin of eight, and if another one changes, it becomes six and so on. It doesn’t take many seats to completely flip control of Congress, so the implications for the 2024 election are huge.
We don’t really know why these two conservative justices chose to preserve the Voting Rights Act; was Alabama’s case particularly weak, or is it a response to the heat the Court has taken over some very conservative decisions? No matter the reason, the fact that this one state’s map is now illegal is a big deal for the whole country. Thank you.