Rep. Pringle: Obama AG behind redistricting effort

Last Friday, State Rep. Chris Pringle told Alabama Public Television’s Todd Stacy he believed former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is behind Alabama’s congressional redistricting.

Today, a federal three-judge panel will convene for a remedial map hearing.

Pringle (R-Mobile) co-chaired the Joint Committee on Reapportionment that was tasked with drawing the Legislature’s maps.

“I had lawsuits filed against me in 2021 before I ever even introduced a map,” Pringle said. “The litigation was there.

“You know what they ruled originally was there was a likely violation of Section 2 in the original maps we passed in 2021 and now they’ve said what we passed in the special session did not remedy the previous violation, so they appointed a special master.”

Pringle said that there is little variance in the three maps the court will consider today.

“We were under the impression that the special master was going to turn over three different maps for the court to decide; and what the special master actually did was take the plaintiff’s VRA plan and gave three different variations of that plan,” Pringle said.

Pringle said the way the First and Second Congressional Districts are drawn by the special master will racially gerrymander the state.

“It really depends on what they decided to racially gerrymander,” Pringle said. “I think two of the plans racially gerrymander Houston County. All of them racially gerrymander Mobile County. Of course, they racially gerrymander Tuscaloosa County also.”

Alabama has had one majority minority district for more than 30 years.

“Remember, these existing districts were put in by the court in the ’90s. All we have done is adjust them for population deviations,” Pringle said.

Proponents of creating the second majority minority district say that it is justified because of increasing Black population in Alabama. Pringle disputes that.

He said Holder and Democrats are behind the effort to overthrow the legislative redistricting through the courts.

“When Eric Holder was the Attorney General of the United States of America, he precleared our congressional plans under Section 5 when we were still had Section 5 preclearance,” said Pringle. “Once he left the Justice Department; he was hired by this Democrat litigation group. I think it is being funded by George Soros. They have got like $300 million to bring these lawsuits all over the place. Once he precleared us, he said ‘you are fine under Section 2 of the 14th Amendment’ and went to this new Democrat congressional litigation thing and then turned around and sued me and said your plan violates Section 2 of the 14th Amendment. He is just getting paid.”

Pringle said this goes beyond the state of Alabama.

“This is an effort all over the nation to sue every southern state and force these kinds of plans to be drawn,” Pringle said.

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