The process of redrawing Alabama’s district maps has started and lawmakers in Montgomery are hoping they’ll be able to pass a plan that will be approved by the court.
Last week, the Joint Legislative Committee on Reapportionment held it’s first public hearing on the issue.
The Yellowhammer State has to redo the maps after the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) upheld a lower court ruling stating that the current map violated the Voting Rights Act.
A member of the Reapportionment Committee, State Sen. Rodger Smitherman (D- Birmingham), discussed the process Friday on Alabama Public Television’s “Capitol Journal.”
“I think everybody wants to get it right,” Smitherman said, “but that’s what we got to decide, whether or not we’re going to embrace this and look at the requirements that we mentioned, about the whole county, gerrymandering, all that aspect of it, and look at what the court has required us to do, and operate from there.”
The senator believes it’s “risky” for the committee to just do the minimum required by the court.
“We got to get it right this time,” he argued. “We didn’t get it right the last time it was drawn. Ok, that’s behind us. This time we’ve got to sit down and…put any kind of partisan politics aside and use as a lynchpin, those orders and the laws on how we should do it, and draw that district.”
Smitherman emphasized that no one on the committee wants to pass something that will ultimately be rejected by the court.
“One thing we don’t want to do is this, we don’t want to send a map up there that’s going to be flawed to the point where the courts are going to reject it, and then they are going to apply their own solution to it,” he said. “That’s the one thing we don’t want to do.”
He also explained what happens if the court rejects the map that’s passed in the special session.
“Then the court is going to appoint an independent third party and they call it a standing master,” he added, “and then they’re going to go in and draw all the seven districts for the state of Alabama.”
Gov. Kay Ivey announced a special legislative session on reapportionment that will start July 17, which gives lawmakers just a few days to pass something before the deadline on July 21.
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee
