State Sen. McClendon anticipates high court ruling on congressional maps soon — Says he wishes lower court had informed legislature of criteria ‘before we drew the maps’

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February 3, 2022

The shockwaves of last month’s three-judge federal court decision rejecting Alabama’s congressional maps drawn by the legislature still have a ripple effect in the Alabama State House.

State Sen. Jim McClendon (R-Springville), the chair of the Joint Reapportionment Committee, said he expected the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on a requested stay by the State of Alabama at any moment.

During an interview with Mobile radio FM Talk 106.5, McClendon explained the three-judge panel’s memo contradicted what previous courts had ruled and its decision could be interpreted as violating the Voting Rights Act.

“[T]he court said, ‘Well, no, that’s not the rule anymore,’” McClendon said. “We’ve changed the rules.’ I wish they had told us this before we drew the maps. But they told us after we drew the maps.”

He continued, “Not only have they changed the rules on a number of minority black districts that there needs to be in Alabama, but they’ve told us we’ve got to use race to draw the new districts. Now the Voting Rights Act makes it very clear you cannot use race when you draw these districts. But the courts have told us you’ve got to use race. The only way to get 50-50 or thereabout black population in the district is by knowing the race.”

“There’s two parts of this, particularly the race issue, which is clearly in violation of the Voting Rights Act — they said is what we’re supposed to do,” McClendon added. “So what we’ve done — the first thing we did is we asked the three-judge panel to stay or just put everything on hold, let us have our election process like we planned on, and they refused to do that. Last Friday, we sent the information to the U.S. Supreme Court. I presume they received it [Monday]. And that’s just to put a hold on this process, so we’ve got time to work it out and keep our elections on the schedule that we intended them to be on.”

McClendon said the high court had expected a response from the plaintiffs on Wednesday, and they were awaiting a decision on their request.

The St. Clair County lawmaker added that 14 states had joined Alabama as a “friend of the court” requesting the stay.

He said he anticipated the Supreme Court’s ruling later this week or next week.

@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly, and host of Mobile’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on FM Talk 106.5.