Secretary of State Wes Allen argued a plan to have a special master redraw state congressional districts “will intentionally segregate Alabamians based on race.”
Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen speaks during the inauguration ceremony on the steps of the Alabama state Capital in Montgomery, Ala., Monday, Jan. 16, 2023. Alabama Secretary of Wes Allen on Monday night urged the U.S. Supreme Court to issue an emergency stay of a federal court’s plan to have a special master redraw state congressional districts, arguing the plan “will intentionally segregate Alabamians based on race.”pending Alabama’s appeal of the redistricting case.
The judges ruled last year that Alabama’s map, with one majority Black district out of seven in a state where one-fourth of residents are Black, gave Black voters less of an opportunity than other Alabamians to elect a candidate of their choice.“Absent a stay, the State will be compelled to cede its sovereign redistricting power to a court that will intentionally segregate Alabamians based on race,” Allen wrote in the stay application to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
In denying the stay earlier Monday, the three-judge panel in Birmingham noted that Alabama lawmakers did not join Allen in submitting a motion for an emergency stay. “As a practical matter, the Legislators’ silence undermines the Secretary’s position. It is the Legislature’s task to draw districts; the Secretary simply administers elections,” the judges ruled.