Turns Out Not Everyone is as Eager as SCOTUS to Make Gerrymandering Great Again

A federal three-judge panel ordered Alabama to keep using a court-selected congressional map that includes two majority-Black districts used in the 2024 elections. The panel rejected Alabama’s 2023 GOP-led redistricting plan for the 2026 House elections. The judges found the 2023 plan intentionally discriminated on the basis of race, violating the 14th Amendment. The court rejected the state’s claim that the map was driven by party politics. The judges concluded lawmakers enacted the plan to distribute Black voters across districts to dilute their votes, at least in part because they were Black. The ruling is expected to be appealed to the Supreme Court. In South Carolina, the state Senate rejected a Republican proposal to cancel congressional votes and reschedule a new primary under revised districts.

"The panel of three judges instead ordered Alabama to continue using a court-selected map that includes two majority-Black districts. Those congressional district lines were used in the 2024 elections. In their decision, the judges found that the redistricting plan adopted by Alabama's GOP-led legislature in 2023, which state officials sought to reimplement for this year's House contests, intentionally discriminated on the basis of race, in violation of the Constitution's 14th Amendment."

""Ultimately, we cannot see our way clear to requiring Alabamians to cast their votes in the 2026 elections under a districting plan tainted by intentional race-based discrimination," Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus and District Judges Anna Manasco and Terry Moorer found. ... The court rejected the state's argument that mapmakers were driven by party politics when they redrew the House district lines in 2023 and instead found that state lawmakers enacted that map to "distribute Black voters across districts to dilute their votes, at least in part because they were Black.""

"As early in-person voting began Tuesday in South Carolina's primaries, the state Senate rejected a Republican plan to cancel those congressional votes and instead schedule a new primary under revised districts desi"

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