Southern state Republicans look to capitalize on Supreme Court ruling weakening Voting Rights Act
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Lawmakers in several southern states will meet this week to consider plans that could upend their congressional primaries and redraw U.S. House districts ahead of the November elections, as Republicans move quickly to capitalize on a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.
Special legislative sessions responding to the court ruling are to start Monday in Alabama and Tuesday in Tennessee. Louisiana lawmakers, who already are in session, also are looking at how to redraw their congressional districts. And President Donald Trump has urged more states to join in redistricting.
Civil rights activists have countered with rallies, protests and lawsuits challenging the new redistricting efforts.
Last week’s Supreme Court decision striking down a majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana has unleashed “a wave of nefarious actions” across states that threatens to disenfranchise Black voters, Alanah Odoms, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, said Monday.
But Trump on Sunday encouraged more states to join in redistricting, saying in a social media post that Republicans could gain 20 House seats.
“We should demand that State Legislatures do what the Supreme Court says must be done,” Trump said.
The high court's ruling said Louisiana relied too heavily on race when creating a second Black majority House district as it attempted to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The ruling significantly altered a decades-old understanding of the law and provided grounds for Republicans in various states to try to eliminate majority-Black districts that have elected Democrats to Congress.
Legislative voting districts typically are redrawn only once a decade, after a census, to account for population changes. But Trump urged Texas Republicans last year to redraw U.S. House districts to give the party an advantage. Democrats in California responded by doing the same, and then other states joined in.
On Monday, Florida became the eighth state to enact new House districts ahead of the midterm elections, as Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis announced he had signed a redrawn map passed by lawmakers last week that could help Republicans win as many as four additional House seats.
All told, Republicans think they could gain as many as 13 seats from new congressional districts in five states, while Democrats think they could pick up as many as 10 seats from new districts adopted in three states. The newly proposed redistricting in southern states could add to the Republicans' tally.
After last week's Supreme Court decision, Louisiana moved quickly to delay its May 16 congressional primary to allow time for lawmakers to approve new U.S. House districts. But Republicans have yet to unveil their planned revisions to district lines.
Democrats and civil rights groups have filed several lawsuits challenging the election suspension, including another suit filed Monday in federal court. They are encouraging people in Louisiana — where early voting already is underway — to go ahead and cast votes in the congressional primaries in case courts later allow them to be counted.
Rather than canceling the state's May 19 primaries, Republican Gov. Kay Ivey has called legislators into a special session to consider contingency plans for special primary elections in hopes the U.S. Supreme Court will let the state switch congressional maps ahead of the November midterms.
Federal judges previously ordered Alabama to use a court-selected map — with a second district that has a substantial number of Black voters — until a new map is drafted after the 2030 Census. But Alabama appealed that decision and has asked the court, in light of the Louisiana ruling, to let it revert to a 2023 map drawn by Republican state lawmakers. That map would substantially alter the district now represented by Rep. Shomari Figures, a Black Democrat.
Democrats sharply criticized any attempt to change the House districts ahead of the looming elections.
“This special session is a blatant power grab by Republican leadership in Montgomery to eliminate seats held by Black Democrats,” said former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, a Democratic candidate for Alabama governor.
In Tennessee, Republican Gov. Bill Lee also announced a special session starting Tuesday for the GOP-controlled Legislature to break up the state’s one Democratic-held House district, centered on the majority-Black city of Memphis.
The move comes after a pressure campaign by Trump and other Republicans to reconfigure the state’s 9th Congressional District. Previous precedent in Voting Rights Act cases had prevented Republicans from spreading the district’s Democratic voters among neighboring conservative districts and making it winnable. But the law may no longer be an impediment.
“We owe it to Tennesseans to ensure our congressional districts accurately reflect the will of Tennessee voters,” Lee said.
The candidate qualifying period in Tennessee ended in March, and the primary election is scheduled for Aug. 6. Democrats noted that in 2022, the state Supreme Court checked additional redistricting because it was too close to an election. They argued that the court is their best hope this time around, too.
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Loller reported from Nashville and Lieb from Jefferson City, Missouri. Associated Press writers Jack Brook in New Orleans and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.
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