A New Mexico judge rules in favor of Republicans

The 2024 Congressional Map: Alabama’s Case against a New Republican State-Selection Map — A Circuit Judge’s Reassessment

After a high-profile legal fight that lasted roughly two years, a panel of three federal judges on Thursday picked a map that will be used when Alabamians cast their 2024 vote for who will represent them in the U.S. House.

The legal tug-of-war over Alabama’s congressional map started shortly after the state redrew its districts in 2021. Despite Black Alabamians making up 27% of the state’s population, only one of the state’s seven congressional seats regularly went to a candidate preferred by Black voters.

The same three-judge panel reviewed Alabama’s map again. The state argued that this was a new map, passed along new rules, so the old order should not apply. Besides, the state said considering race when drawing the map would have been racial gerrymandering and therefore illegal.

The lower court was backed in June by the Supreme Court with both Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh siding with the three liberals.

The Supreme Court put the pen back in Republican legislators’ hands to redraw the state’s congressional map with a clear mandate: Make a second district that empowers Black voters.

The judges were not swayed. In their decision, they said they were “disturbed” by Alabama’s actions and the state failing to “even nurture the ambition” to follow the court’s Supreme Court-backed order.

The judges decided to enforce the map drawn by the special master. There is no second majority-Black district on the map. In District 2, the Black voting-age population is 48.7%. But it did outperform the other two choices, with the Black-preferred candidate winning 16 of the 17 previous elections, according to the special master’s analysis.

The three-judge panel wrote Thursday that the plan fulfilled all constitutional and statutory requirements while hewing as close to the Alabama Legislature’s plan as possible.

In response to the governor’s actions last year to draw a map that would have eliminated a voting district with a large Black population, Florida has a case.

In Georgia, a federal judge has already stated that parts of the state’s maps likely violate federal law. Still, he’s running a trial to flesh out the facts.

A New Mexico judge upheld the state’s congressional map on Friday, one day after a trial over whether the Legislature was illegally drawing the boundaries in 2021.

“Given the variables that go into predicting future election outcomes, coupled with the competitive outcome of the only actual election held so far under the SB1 map, the Court finds that the Plaintiffs have not provided sufficient evidence that the Defendants were successful in their attempt to entrench their party in Congressional District 2,” Van Soelen wrote in his ruling.

The entire southern part of New Mexico, including a portion of the oil-rich Permian Basin, was once encompassed by the 2nd District. It was redrawn to exclude part of the state’s eastern border with Texas — a conservative-leaning area — and add a heavily Hispanic and Democratic part of Albuquerque, the state’s largest city.

The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled in a case that partisan gerrymandering is acceptable. It’s when it’s an egregious violation of the state Constitution.

“Entrenchment is a core of an egregious partisan gerrymander,” wrote Van Soelen in his decision. That is, Democrats would have to have such a strong hold on the district that they would always win. If the map did not decide the election results, it would be in violation of the Republican’s equal protection rights.

The parties in the case presented conflicting evidence at trial as to whether the district remains competitive. So, Van Soelen based his ruling on the results of the 2022 election — the only time the map has been used.

The Republican Party of New Mexico announced Friday that it would appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court “on behalf of all disenfranchised voters in the state of New Mexico.”

The ruling could affect the balance of power in the U.S. House. There is a chance of a re-enactment of the election in the year twenty four.