Federal judge orders Alabama's largest county to redraw racially gerrymandered districts

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A federal judge on Tuesday ordered Alabama’s largest county to redraw county commission lines after ruling that the districts were unconstitutional because of racial gerrymandering.

U.S. District Judge Madeline H. Haikala ruled the county map was unconstitutional because race was the predominant factor when the Jefferson County Commission drew districts. The ruling came in a 2023 lawsuit that says the plan overly packed Black voters, who make up 40% of the county population, into just two districts.

“Because the 2021 plan violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection against racial gerrymandering, the Court permanently enjoins the Commission and its agents from using the 2021 plan in Jefferson County Commission elections,” Haikala wrote.

Jefferson County is Alabama’s largest county and home to Birmingham, the city center of the largest metropolitan area in the state. A new map could shift the balance of power in the county. The commission is made up of three Republicans and two Democrats.

Cara McClure, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, said she is looking forward to the commission “coming to the table to finally draw a map that is fair to Black voters in the county.”

“The County Commission is responsible for so many things that impact our everyday life. The main thing is making sure every voice and every vote is heard and counted. And that’s not what has been happening,” McClure said, who is executive director of Faith and Works Statewide Civic Engagement Collective.

The judge gave the county and plaintiffs 30 days to file a report on the development of a remedial redistricting plan.

“We are currently reviewing the order to determine next steps,” Jefferson County Attorney Theo Lawson wrote in an email to The Associated Press.

Kathryn Sadasivan, assistant counsel with NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said the existing plan overly packed Black voters into the two districts while the county sought to maintain set racial ratios in the other three.

“It’s a problem of not just those two districts that were maintained at super majority Black status without consideration of what the Voting Rights Act required, but also an explicit attempt to maintain the racial ratios of Black voters to white voters in every other district,” Sadasivan said.

Haikala noted in a footnote that the results of the case might be different if the commission showed that the higher percentage of Black voters was required to ensure they could select the candidates of their choice. But the judge said the commission offered no such evidence.

Jefferson County was the site of some of the most infamous moments of the Civil Rights Movement, including the 1963 bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church that killed four girls. The industrial city has evolved into a corporate economic engine fueled in part by the banking and medical industries.