Alabama Republicans on Monday defended their decision not to create a second majority-Black district in a hearing before a panel of federal judges over the state’s redrawn congressional maps.
State Republicans continue to resist court orders, including from the supreme court in June, to amend the congressional maps to give Black voters increased political power and representation.
Lawyers for voters called Alabama’s plan, which maintains one majority-Black district, discriminatory. Abha Khanna, an attorney representing one group of plaintiffs in the case, said Alabama chose “defiance over compliance”.
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In response to the ruling, Alabama Republicans boosted the percentage of Black voters in the majority-white second congressional district, now represented by Republican representative Barry Moore, from about 30% to 39.9%, failing to give Black voters a majority which would allow them to elect their candidate of choice.
A lawyer for the state accused plaintiffs of seeking a “racial gerrymander” over traditional guidelines for drawing districts, such as keeping districts compact and keeping communities of interest together.
I wish that Merrick Garland was my uncle or something so that I could call him up and ask him off the record how he thinks about all of this stuff.
He clearly wants to avoid looking political and as such rarely shares any comments on all of this fuckery. The problem, which all of us here I think are fairly clear on, his lack of calling out this bullshit is not only dangerous, but does a disservice to justice.
I would love to be able to hear his off-the-record reasoning as to why he isn’t speaking up, and be able to challenge him in real time. Due to the political landscape, this could never be public as it would immediately be weaponized, as we can all probably predict.
Still, it sucks. The inaction is just as bad as taking a stance that isn’t popular with the fascist party we call Republicans.
He isn’t a part of the GOP, but he might as well be a moderate one that disagrees with Trump and his foam-at-the-mouth idiot sheep sycophants, not unlike someone like Romney or Cheney (although she voted with Trump 90% or more of the time IIRC). The effect of silence is almost the same as a plant that looks the other way.
Our political system pisses me the fuck off. It’s depressing watching this happen in real time.
I absolutely agree, it’s been like watching a slow motion train wreck, except for the fact that we’re all passengers on that train.