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The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the drawing of a new Alabama congressional map with greater representation for Black voters to proceed, rejecting the state’s plea to retain Republican-drawn lines that were struck down by a lower court.

In refusing to intervene, the justices, without any noted dissent, allowed a court-appointed special master’s work to continue. On Monday, he submitted three proposals that would create a second congressional district where Black voters comprise a majority of the voting age population or close to it.

A second district with a Democratic-leaning Black majority could send another Democrat to Congress at a time when Republicans hold a razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives. Federal lawsuits over state and congressional districts also are pending in Georgia, Louisiana and Texas.

Alabama lost its Supreme Court case in June in which its congressional map with just one majority Black district out of seven seats was found to dilute the voting power of the state’s Black residents, who make up more than a quarter of Alabama’s population.

  • As long as elected politicians get to draw voting districts there will be Gerrymandering. I wish we just voted for a party, parliament style, and if you get 60% of the vote you got 60% of the seats

    • I get what you mean, but you’re talking about proportional representation (specifically closed-list). Parliament style refers to how the executive branch is formed. Here in the UK, we have a parliamentary system (the Government, our executive branch, is picked* by Parliament, our legislature), but elect the lower house using first-past-the-post, the same system the US uses.