In five-hour hearing Monday Judge Madeline Haikala heard arguments from plaintiffs who say the commission’s current five district map packs Black voters into two districts, unfairly reducing their influence elsewhere in Jefferson County.
The future leadership of Alabama’s largest county is in the hands of a federal judge who will decide whether Jefferson County commissioners gerrymandered district lines to dwarf the voting rights of Black residents.plaintiffs who say the commission’s current five-district map packs Black voters into two districts, unfairly reducing their influence elsewhere in Jefferson County.
“Racial gerrymanders cause serious societal harm,” said James Blackshear, voting rights lawyer and a member of the team seeking to change the commission map. Blackshear said the county lines were designed as self-serving tools to preserve the status quo. He said the map was drawn without rules or guidelines.
Plaintiffs said the current terms for county commissioners elected in 2022 should be shortened and a special election called for 2024 at the same time voters go to the polls for the presidential primary. The latest map iteration, Meehan said, included minor adjustments needed to make district populations even and other changes for the convenience of voters.
If new lines are drawn to give Black residents more voting power, then the balance of power could swing and give Democrats a majority on the commission and the commission president’s gavel. Currently the five districts are solidly partisan on either side.U.S. Supreme Court which ruled that state’s congressional map was unfair to Black voters.
Rice said new lines would maintain the two current majority Black districts, but would allow for a “crossover district,” that would be politically competitive with a 40 to 45 percent Black population. Such a district would force commission candidates to think more broadly about policies that affect all of Jefferson County, rather than exclusively pandering to their political majority, he said.
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