Supreme Court Looks Past Weak Pleadings to Find Potential Racial Gerrymander in Alabama Map

By EditorApr 14, 2015
The Supreme Court’s recent opinion remanding a challenge by Black state officials to the 2012 Alabama Legislative district map back to a federal district court is relatively short for a majority opinion but chock full of legal nuggets as the justices’ focused on several bases for returning this case back to a lower court to reconsider its ruling against the plaintiffs. In all, the decision discussed four distinct issues; two procedural and two substantive – it felt the lower court bungled. If we had to explain the four corners of the Alabama opinion in one sentence it would be; The…
NEWS, Racial Gerrymandering, Redistricting, Redistricting Gerrymanders, Redistricting Litigation, Redistricting Race Rules, ,
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Supreme Court May Resurrect Alabama Legislative Black Caucus’ Equal Population Claims

By EditorMar 02, 2015
The Alabama Legislative Black Caucus' Supreme Court Case was late last year, and focused on whether that state's 2012 legislative redistricting plan was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Interestingly, there was a second question presented in the case at the district court level: "whether the 2012 redistricting plans allocate control of local delegations in a manner which violates Equal Protection, effectively denying county residents equal voting rights." This "second" question is actually an equal population challenge, and is based on the redistricting maps' gratuitous breaching of county jurisdiction lines. In Alabama, it is local state legislative delegations that have most of…
Casedocs, Equal Protection, FEATURES, POLICY and PRACTICE, Redistricting Gerrymanders, Redistricting Litigation, , ,
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Listen: Supreme Court Oral Argument in Alabama Racial Gerrymander Case

Listen: Supreme Court Oral Argument in Alabama Racial Gerrymander Case

By EditorDec 08, 2014
  Listen to the Supreme Court's oral arguments in the consolidated cases; Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama and  Alabama Democratic Conference v. Alabama. Democratic lawmakers in the Alabama legislature claim the Republican-led legislature packed Black voters into state legislative districts to dilute their voting power resulting in an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The court heard oral arguments on November 12th 2014.    
Equal Protection, LAW, NEWS, POLICY and PRACTICE, Race in Redistricting, Racial Gerrymandering, Redistricting, Redistricting Gerrymanders, Redistricting Litigation, Redistricting Race Rules, ,
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Supreme Court Will Decide Whether Alabama Gerrymander is a Racial or Partisan One.

By EditorDec 08, 2014
NPR previews Ala. Legis. Black Caucus v. Alabama; a claim alleging that the Alabama state legislature's 2010 legislative redistricting map is a racial gerrymander. Alabama says the Voting Rights Act made them create the map. Listen below. http://www.npr.org/v2/?i=363375057&m=363458938&t=audio  
Redistricting, Redistricting Gerrymanders, Redistricting Litigation, Redistricting Race Rules,
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