The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this week that Alabama Republicans could proceed with their congressional redistricting plans after their proposal was struck down by a district court.
A 5-4 majority ruled on Monday that the 2022 Republican-drawn congressional map could be used for the next decade, a big win for conservatives. Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the court’s liberals in dissent.
Alabama’s current congressional map features six red seats and one blue seat. Republicans, who control redistricting in the state, redrew the new districts to be nearly identical to how they are now, and didn’t change balance of power.
However, Democrats claimed Republicans were being racist, and accused them of gerrymandering. They demanded Republicans add a second Democrat seat because the black population in Alabama grew by four percent.
Then, three district court judges ruled that the map in some way violated the Voting Rights Act, and ordered Republicans to add another Democrat seat. Republicans appealed the district court’s ruling and took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ironically, as Democrats accuse Republicans of gerrymandering, their party has been severely gerrymandering congressional districts in states like New York.
New York had 19 Democrat-held seats and eight Republican-held seats. Recently, Democrats eliminated four of the Republican-held seats with gerrymandering, and redrew three of the seats to favor themselves.
Both of the two new independent seats were also remade to favor Democrats.
Democrats in Illinois, New Jersey, and New Mexico all gerrymandered their seats similar to New York, and are facing pushback from officials for their egregious bias.
New Jersey and New Mexico are currently facing litigation for their unrepresentative and unfair redistricting practices.
Thus, as Democrats try to pass a bill they claim will help voting rights while simultaneously gerrymandering Republican representation out of their states, it leads many to wonder if they support a representative government.