AFP, published on Thursday, 06/08/2023 at 22:52
The US Supreme Court on Thursday invalidated a map of electoral districts created by elected Republican officials in southern Alabama, alleging discrimination against black voters.
By a slim majority of five out of nine judges, the Temple of American Law refused to explore the great civil rights law of 1965 any further, to the great relief of minority defenders.
That text, the Voting Rights Act, was passed to prevent former segregation states from stripping African Americans of the right to vote, but has been partially stripped of its substance by the Supreme Court in recent years.
This file was seen as a new attempt to weaken them.
Beyond the debate over its map, Alabama had tried to persuade the Supreme Court to change its case law, which prohibits diluting black voters’ votes by concentrating them in a limited number of constituencies to reduce their influence elsewhere.
In agreeing to accept his appeal, the court, steeped in conservatism, seemed ready to provide him with a reasoning.
During the hearing, the progressive judge Elena Kagan was moved: “The voting rights law is one of the great advances of our democracy (…) What will remain of it?”
Alabama’s proposed “new approach,” which sought to prevent racial criteria from being considered in assessing the legality of electoral reallocations, “is unconvincing in theory or in practice,” but Supreme Court Chief John Roberts ruled Thursday for the majority.
– “Orwellian idea” –
This ruling “reaffirms a fundamental principle: there must be no racial discrimination in elections,” hailed President Joe Biden, for whom “the job is not done yet.”
The Democrat, elected largely by African American votes, asked Congress to pass legislation to restore and strengthen the 1965 law. Such a proposal is blocked by the Republican opposition.
The powerful civil rights organization ACLU also welcomed the “victory” of black voters.
“The Supreme Court rejected the Orwellian idea that it was inappropriate to use racial criteria to determine the existence of racial discrimination,” which would have overruled the law, said ACLU attorney Davin Rosborough.
The decision, thus perpetuating the status quo, is also forcing Republican authorities in Alabama to review a House seat allocation map created in 2021.
According to this classification, black voters, who vote predominantly Democratic, were in the majority in only one of the state’s seven constituencies, while making up 27% of the population. The new map also cut right through a predominantly black region, the “Black Belt,” and split it in half.
The Supreme Court ruling requires authorities to create a second constituency with a majority of African-American voters.