A three-judge federal court panel issued a scathing and massive 217-page unanimous ruling Tuesday against the Republican-majority Alabama legislature, which had defied a U.S. Supreme Court ruling ordering the state to draw up a new congressional map with two majority-Black districts. Lawmakers submitted a map they fully acknowledged included only one majority-Black district.
“We are disturbed by the evidence that the State delayed remedial proceedings but ultimately did not even nurture the ambition to provide the required remedy,” the judges wrote in a filing Tuesday, NBC News reports. “And we are struck by the extraordinary circumstance we face.”
“We are not aware of any other case in which a state legislature — faced with a federal court order declaring that its electoral plan unlawfully dilutes minority votes and requiring a plan that provides an additional opportunity district — responded with a plan that the state concedes does not provide that district,” the judges’ ruling states.
The judges ordered a special master be appointed who will create a “remedial map to ensure that a plan can be implemented as part of an orderly process in advance of elections, where the State was given an opportunity to enact a compliant map but failed to do so.”
CNN notes the three-panel court includes two Trump-appointed judges.
Watch CNN’s report below or at this link.
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