Alabama top stories in brief
- The Muscogee Creek Nation has appealed to the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to reinstate their case against the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, Auburn University and others. The Muscogee’s case was dismissed in 2021 by a federal judge. The appeal alleges that the Poarch’s well-known casino, Wind Creek Casino and Resort in Wetumpka was built on sacred ground and illegally removed graves that belonged to Muscogee ancestors. The appeal says that Auburn University violated the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act because, as a federally funded university, they should have returned the buried ancestors and artifacts to their descendents.
- James Edward Barber was executed on Friday, July 21, for the murder of Dorothy Epps in 2001. This was the first execution completed by Alabama since Gov. Kay Ivey placed a temporary freeze on executions until the process could be reviewed. She lifted her ban in February.
- A report from the American Lung Association gave Jefferson County an F for its high ozone days. The report also ranked Birmingham, Hoover and Tuscaloosa together as having the 18th highest year-round particle pollution in the nation.
- The Conservation Fund, a non-profit conservation group that’s mission statement revolves around protecting land and water resources and “emphasizing the integration of economic and environmental goals,” purchased 23,000 acres to protect the Red Hills salamander. The Red Hills salamander is on the federal endangered species list, and is unique to a small region of Alabama. The group intends to open up portions of the land for outdoor recreation, including hunting and fishing, according to a press release on their website.
Alabama’s legislators disagree on whether the new district map fulfills court requirements
At the end of a week-long special session on Friday, Alabama legislators voted to approve a new congressional map, and Gov. Kay Ivey signed the new bill. The new map lowers the number of Black voters in District 7, Alabama’s current only majority Black district, to 50% and raises District 2 to 40%.
In 2022, a three judge panel ruled that Alabama’s legislative map likely violated the federal Voting Rights Act. The panel ruled that Alabama had to create a second district where Black voters held a majority or something close to it to give Black voters the opportunity to elect a candidate that they chose. The decision was appealed to the Supreme Court, and in a 5-4 ruling this year, they affirmed the lower court’s ruling.
Alabama’s population is 27% Black, but out of its seven congressional representatives, only one of them is Black.
The lack of actual numerical superiority has sparked criticism from democratic lawmakers, who argue that this fails to fulfill the requirements of the court’s order.
Republican lawmakers have argued that the district meets the court’s orders as it provides an opportunity for a Black lawmaker to be elected.
Since Black voters are highly likely to elect a democrat to office, Alabama’s special session has drawn national attention. Currently, Republicans only hold a majority in the house by 5 seats, so losing a seat from Alabama could have large repercussions.
The sponsor for the chosen map, Sen. Steve Livingston, R-Scottsboro, the co-chair of the Permanent Legislative Reapportionment Committee, said that he’d spoken with U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-California. According to Livingston, McCarthy said that he was interested in holding onto the majority in the house.
Matt Clark, president of the Alabama Center for Law and Liberty, a conservative non-profit law group, said that he believed the map had a good chance of being upheld.
“The new map does not create a second majority-minority district. If the ACLU wants to sue again and argue that such a district must be created, it will have to prove that the white majority will act as a bloc to defeat the minority’s preferred candidate,” Clark told 1819 News on Friday. “In District 2, although there’s still a white majority, I think there are lots of white liberals in the Montgomery area that aren’t guaranteed to vote Republican. The ACLU will have to argue with a straight face that all those white liberals in Montgomery will be guaranteed to vote against the black minority’s preferred candidate, but I don’t think they can prove that. If they can’t, then the map should be upheld.”
In a news release from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the plaintiffs that challenged Alabama’s congressional maps condemned the maps approved by the legislature.
“Let’s be clear: The Alabama Legislature believes it is above the law,” said the plaintiffs in a joint statement. “What we are dealing with is a group of lawmakers who are blatantly disregarding not just the Voting Rights Act, but a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court and a court order from the three-judge district court. Even worse, they continue to ignore constituents’ pleas to ensure the map is fair and instead remain determined to rob Black voters of the representation we deserve.”
While the map has been approved by the legislature and Ivey, it still must be reviewed by the courts. The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to hold a hearing to review the map on Aug.14.
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Last week’s roundup focused on how Alabama representatives in Congress blocked attempts by Colorado legislators to send funds to Space Command’s temporary headquarters in Colorado. Alabama legislators say that Colorado legislators were attempting to continue to develop the headquarters in their state in order to make it more likely that it would become permanent instead of being relocated to Huntsville, Alabama.
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