Behind the Lines - Alabama

Introduction

The Alabama State Legislature passed  H.B.1  on November 3, 2021, and Governor Kay Ivey signed it into law on November 4, 2021. Soon after,  three   federal   lawsuits  were filed challenging the plan as unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered and intentionally discriminatory and as violating § 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The plaintiffs sought a judicial declaration that the plan was unconstitutional and unlawful, an injunction barring the plan from being used in future elections, and for the court to cause the adoption of a new plan that included a second majority-minority congressional district.

On January 24, 2022, a three-judge federal district court panel granted the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction on the grounds the plaintiffs were “substantially likely” to establish the existence of a § 2 violation and ordered the State to enact a remedial plan that included a second majority-Black district within 14 days. The State filed appeals in two of the cases ( Caster v. Merrill  &  Milligan v. Merrill ) to both the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and the  U.S. Supreme Court  and requested a stay on the district court’s ruling while the appeal was pending.

On February 7, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order stating it would treat the State’s application as a petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment, granted the petition, and stayed the district court’s injunction pending further order of the Court, thereby allowing the plan to be used in the 2022 elections.

The case, which remains pending before the Court, is scheduled for oral argument on October 4, 2022, and will likely have substantial implications on the future of redistricting as the Justices grapple with the interplay between state redistricting criteria and § 2’s application in the redistricting context.

Demographics

2020 Single Race Demographics (Other includes Native, Asian, Hawaiian/Pacific Islander)

Alabama gained 244,543 new residents since the 2010 Census. In 2020, the demographic makeup of Alabama was similar to 2010: the 2 largest racial groups remained fairly consistent with the White population decreasing by 1.0% and the Black population increasing by 3.5%. The largest growth among racial groups came from Hispanic (+42.3%) and 2 or More Races (+205.4%).

The statewide White population share fell from 67.0% to 63.1% due to the growth of the above-mentioned groups and the slight decline in White population. Meanwhile, the statewide Black population share fell from 26.0% to 25.6% due to the growth of other minorities despite a raw increase of over 43,000 new Black residents.

The pie chart shows the 2020 demographic makeup and the table shows the changes between the 2010 and 2020 populations.

Demographic Changes from 2010-2020

Minority Population Distribution

There are two measures of Black population that are frequently used in redistricting. One is looking at the Black Alone population. These are people who, on the Census, only chose “Black” as their race and “Not Hispanic or Latino” for their ethnicity. A second measure is “Any Part Black,” which is a calculated value that counts respondents who choose any combination of race and ethnicity that includes Black.

Following the 2020 Census, Alabama’s "Any Part Black" population was 1,364,73; a growth of 83,618 from the 2010 Census. The state’s population is roughly 27% “Any Part Black.” When comparing the "Any Part Black" population from 2020, it is 76,577 higher than the "Black Alone" population.

The image to the right shows the distribution of Alabama’s minority population with red dots symbolizing Black populations and green dots symbolizing Hispanic populations.

Pan through the map below to see the demographics of the state. Be sure to zoom in to get a more detailed look!

Demographics Map

State Criteria

Alabama doesn't have constitutional or statutory criteria for their congressional redistricting plans, leaving the map-makers with broad discretion as to how to draw a plan. However, the entity tasked with drawing the state's plans, the Alabama Legislature's Permanent Joint Legislative Committee on Reapportionment, has a practice of adopting criteria in the form of guidelines each decade. Some of the  criteria  that the Committee on Reapportionment used this past cycle are listed below:

  • Compact
  • Contiguous
  • Minimize City & County Splits
  • Preserve Communities of Interest
  • Attempt to Avoid Pairing Incumbents
  • Attempt to Maintain Core of Existing Districts

Alabama has used these same principals for the last 50 years and, as a result, the state's congressional districts have remained relatively consistent from 1972 to the present, as shown below.

Slider

The current configuration of Alabama’s congressional districts can be traced back to a 1992 federal court decision in Wesch v. Hunt, 785 F. Supp. 1491 (S.D. Ala. 1992). After Alabama failed to enact a new congressional plan following the 1990 Census, a plaintiff brought suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama challenging the state’s then-current congressional plan, enacted in 1981, as unconstitutionally malapportioned and seeking a judicially imposed, constitutionally apportioned plan in time for the 1992 elections.

The three-judge district court panel issued an order adopting a slightly modified version of one proposal, the “Pierce Plan,” after finding it best complied with constitutional population equality requirements and the Committee on Reapportionment's compactness, preservation of prior district cores, and respect for communities of interest and political subdivisions redistricting criteria.

Most importantly, the plan included Congressional District 7 as a majority-Black congressional district based on the parties’ mutual stipulation and agreement that Alabama’s Black population was sufficiently compact and contiguous to comprise a single-member majority in a congressional district.

In order to make CD7 a VRA seat, it connected the black areas in Birmingham and Montgomery through the rural Western Black Belt to give African Americans in those areas the ability to elect a candidate of their choice.

During the subsequent 2000 and 2010 redistricting cycles, Alabama’s congressional districts largely retained the same configuration as the federal court’s plan, with adjustments made only to accommodate population shifts that occurred in the preceding decades.

Neither the 2001 nor 2011 maps were ever declared unlawful by a court and both were granted preclearance by the Department of Justice under § 5 of the Voting Rights Act, meaning they did not diminish the electoral strength of minority voters in Alabama. The modified "Pierce Plan" from the district court was even affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court (Camp v. Wesch, 504 U.S. 902 (1992)) and the plan ultimately remained in effect for the remainder of the decade.

Enacted Map

When Alabama enacted its 2021 congressional plan,  H.B.1 , it followed the same script as it had during the 2000 and 2010 redistricting cycles. The State used the prior decade’s plan as a starting point and made adjustments only as necessary to equalize district populations in order to comply with one person, one vote constitutional requirements.

The State did not consider race when making these adjustments and ultimately advanced several of its neutral redistricting criteria by eliminating various county splits that were present in the prior decade’s plan and improving upon the compactness of District 7. In the final map, District 7 retained its status as the state’s sole majority-Black congressional district.


The map below shows the demographic changes to each of the newly enacted districts.

AL Demo Change Pop-Up

The map below shows the cores and demographics of the new districts in relation to those in the old districts. The lighter portions of the map are the retained cores from the previous district configuration and the darker portions of the map are new areas to the districts under the enacted plan.

Click through the different areas to see the demographics of the areas.

AL_CD_Intersect

Caster v. Merrill & Milligan v. Merrill

The Caster and Milligan plaintiffs both alleged the 2021 plan violated § 2 of the Voting Rights Act because Alabama’s Black population was sufficiently large and compact enough to form a majority of eligible voters in two congressional districts and that in failing to draw them, the State unlawfully diluted the voting strength of Black Alabamians.

In further support of their claims, the plaintiffs cited 2020 Census data showing that 26.9% of Alabamians identify as "Any Part Black" and asserted the State could have naturally drawn a second majority-Black congressional district that respects the community of interest in the state’s historical “Black Belt” counties, regions with a “substantial Black population because of the many enslaved people brought there to work in the antebellum period” that tend to share common political, cultural, and economic interests.

The plaintiffs submitted illustrative redistricting plans to the court which contained two majority-Black congressional districts, shown here, as evidence that such districts could be drawn.

The State defended its plan as a race-neutral map that substantially maintains the same seven-district configuration which has existed in the state for nearly 50 years with approval from both federal courts and the U.S. Department of Justice.

They asserted the plaintiffs’ illustrative plans go beyond the scope of § 2 because they are only able to create two majority-minority districts by ignoring and subordinating the state’s neutral redistricting criteria like compactness and preserving the cores of prior districts to racial considerations and combining disparate populations from across the state.

The State also pointed out the slim Black majorities in the plaintiffs' illustrative plans, shown here.

While all 4 of these plans are majority "Any Part Black," the percentages shown here are the single-race Black %.

The only plan that acheives 2 majority single-race black districts is Plan A. Plan A is able to achieve this by snaking down the Georgia border to pick up the City of Dothan.

All of these plans cut off Mobile County from the rest of District 1 by disconnecting the Jubilee Parkway.

On January 24, 2022, the three-judge district court granted the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction and barred the plan from being used in future elections after finding they were likely to succeed on their § 2 claims. The court ordered the State to pass a remedial plan within 14 days and, if they failed to do so, the court would appoint a special master to create one. The State appealed this decision to both the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court over the following four days and requested stays on the ruling pending appeal.

On February 7, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 to grant the stay and treat the State’s application as a petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment, thereby allowing the plan to be used in the 2022 elections and teeing up the Court’s review of the case in its 2022-2023 term.

The Court’s one-page majority opinion granting the application did not fully delve into its reasoning, but Justice Kavanaugh penned a concurring opinion to which Justice Alito joined explaining their votes were based on the Court’s election-law precedents under Purcell v. Gonzalez, which establishes that federal courts should abstain from enjoining state election laws in the period leading up to an election to prevent voter confusion and undue burdens on state election officials and candidates.

Oral arguments are scheduled to be held on October 4, 2022, in what will be the Court’s first full adjudication of the Voting Rights Act during this redistricting cycle. While the central question is whether Alabama’s enacted congressional plan violates § 2, the merits of the parties’ arguments will require the Justices to confront several complex issues impacting map drawers across the country: the parameters of the “geographically compact” minority population and “single-district majority-minority” prerequisites for § 2 protection; the inherent tension and contradictions between the Court’s § 2 precedents and racial gerrymandering precedents under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause; and the weight given to “proportional representation” arguments and a state’s adherence to race-neutral redistricting criteria when assessing alleged § 2 violations.


How the Court will ultimately resolve these questions remains to be seen but, regardless thereof, the decision will directly shape the outcomes of numerous other redistricting lawsuits that remain pending across the country, including  Louisiana ,  Georgia , and South Carolina, to name a few.

Caster v. Merrill Proposed Maps

FiveThrityEight

Demographics

ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World

Data

Fair Lines America Foundation

2020 Single Race Demographics (Other includes Native, Asian, Hawaiian/Pacific Islander)

Demographic Changes from 2010-2020

Minority Population Distribution