In a country where voting is the foundation for our political offices, discrimination should be completely out of the question. However, just because laws are set does not mean that they are followed and with Alabama’s Republican party they truly show this.
In June, the Supreme Court made a 5-4 decision to uphold a lower court ruling that tossed Alabama’s Republican-made congressional map on the grounds that it discriminated against black voters and violated the Voting Rights Act, an act that prohibits racial discrimination in voting.
Though a fourth of the state’s voters are black, the GOP drew a map where only one district out of the seven in the state had a majority of black voters. Republicans were ordered to redraw the map so that at least two districts had a black majority or at least close to it. But yet again, they failed.
What was a 30% majority was now 40%, only a 10% increase and not enough to make two majorities. Three judges in Montgomery ruled that the new map failed to remedy the violation to the Voting Rights Act which in turn took away Alabama’s legislature power to redraw the congressional map.
Because of this, an independent party appointed by a court was directed to draw a third version of the map by Sept. 25.
Alabama Republicans are trying to take away the voting rights of black people but in turn their rights were taken. Drawing a fair and equal congressional map should not be a difficult task. Especially when the legislature was given two chances to draw a map that did not violate the Voting Rights Act. They blatantly ignored these requirements and decided to just do their own thing.
This situation is the reason why the Voting Rights Act and the 14th Amendment are in place. Black people have constantly been restricted in their basic human rights to vote and are still being limited to this day. All voters are important voters, so why is it such an issue to have two black majority districts? Why is drawing a basic confessional map that includes enough black voters an issue?
What could have been a simple remedy only turned into a long, ongoing legal battle that is completely unnecessary and Republicans have shown their true colors. It is not only an embarrassment for the political party but to the entire state of Alabama. It literally makes them look stupid.
Republicans have repeatedly shown that they are clearly not capable of or willing to follow simple legally binding instructions and are so determined to undermine black voters that they are willing to defy the Supreme Court.
