The lawmakers who will draw Alabama’s new congressional district map will hold their first meeting and public hearing on Tuesday.
The reapportionment committee will meet at 1:30 p.m. at the State House in Montgomery. All the committee’s meetings will be livestreamed here. On the select location tab, select Room 200.
The deadline to submit proposed maps to the committee is July 7 at 5 p.m. The committee has scheduled another meeting for July 13 at 1:30.
A three-judge federal district court issued an order Tuesday giving the Legislature until July 21 to create a new congressional map. That was the date requested by attorneys representing the state. Attorneys representing the Black voters and the organizations who sued to challenge the map agreed with the date. The new map will be used in Alabama’s 2024 congressional elections.
Gov. Kay Ivey is expected to call the Legislature into special session to consider the new district plan. It would take at least five days to approve a plan.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 8 that Alabama’s current map most likely violates the Voting Rights Act because it dilutes the influence of Black voters. The Supreme Court sent the case back to the three-judge court, which had made the same finding last year. Six of Alabama’s seven congressional districts are majority white, while Blacks make up 27% of the state’s population. The courts ruled that to fix the Voting Rights violation, the new plan must have a second district that is majority Black or that is close enough to majority Black to give Black voters an opportunity to elect a representative of their choice.
If the Legislature fails to approve a plan by July 21, the three-judge court will draw the map. The court has a cartographer and a special master ready to do that.
If the Legislature approves the plan, the plaintiffs in the litigation have until July 28 to file any objections. The court would hold a hearing on that beginning on Aug. 14 at the federal courthouse on Birmingham.
