By Barnett Wright |The Birmingham Times
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the current Jefferson County Commission district maps must be redrawn, saying the maps violate the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
U.S. District Court Judge Madeline Haikala issued a 139-page ruling that said the commission’s districting plan – finalized in 2021 – violated the Fourteenth Amendment and cannot be used in the county’s upcoming 2026 elections. She ordered a “remedial redistricting plan” within 30 days.
“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. Within 30 days, the parties shall please file a joint report on the development of a remedial redistricting plan,” Haikala wrote.
The Legal Defense Fund (LDF) along with several law firms filed a lawsuit in 2023 on behalf of Cara McClure and several others challenging the County Commission districts as unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
Plaintiffs in the McClure v. Jefferson County Commission case argued that the commission’s current five-district map in Alabama’s most populous county illegally packed Black voters into districts 1 and 2 and unfairly diluted their influence elsewhere.
Currently, the county commission districts are made up of 1 and 2 which are mostly Black and Democrat; and 3, 4 and 5 which are mostly white and Republican.
LDF assistant counsel Kathryn Sadasivan said Tuesday on the Chris Coleman Show (V94.9 FM) that the court “prevented the commission from using the plan that they passed, which packed Black voters into two supermajority Black districts.”
“The next step in this case requires a remedial map to be implemented,” Sadasivan told Coleman and his listeners. “We are hopeful because the first step in the process is to give the commission an opportunity to enact a new plan that cures the violation of the constitution the courts found, and plaintiffs like Cara proved.”
Sadasivan said the court will generally give the jurisdiction a week or two to remedy the constitutional violation. “If they don’t, or if we find that the map that’s passed doesn’t actually cure the constitutional violation, then the court is going to have the unwelcome obligation of drawing its own map.”
Jefferson County Attorney Theo Lawson said the Commission has received the order “and reviewing it to determine the next steps.”
Sources say the County Commission could meet as soon as Thursday to discuss options, including possibly asking the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to stay Haikala’s order.
Time could be of the essence. The Jefferson County Commission elections are 14 months away and the qualifying deadline is January 23.
Sadasivan said there is enough time “to implement a [fair] map.” “Whether that takes a few weeks because the commission implements its own map, that is fair, or it takes a little bit longer, a month or two, because the court has to step in to have an unwelcome obligation of implementing a fair map, we are confident that a fair map will be in place” before the qualifying deadline.
In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs alleged the county “manipulated the districts to prevent Black, Latinx, and other voters from realizing their fair share of political power. This is a clear violation of the Constitution.”
Attorneys for Jefferson County in court had defended the map as legal and a continuation of lines that were drawn as the result of a 1986 consent decree that created two majority Black districts.
