OAN’s Taylor Tinsley
10:56 AM – Tuesday, September 12, 2023
On Monday night, Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen urged the U.S. Supreme Court to issue an emergency stay in a redistricting case over the state’s congressional map.
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In the stay application to Justice Clarence Thomas, Allen argued “Alabama will suffer irreparable harm absent this Court’s intervention, and the balance of harms and the public interest warrant a stay.”
Allen’s request came shortly after a three-judge panel in Birmingham denied his motion earlier on Monday, to stay an order for a special master to submit three new redistricting maps for the 2024 election cycle by September 25th.
The Supreme Court upheld a ruling in favor of Black voters from the federal court in June, that affirmed the state’s 2021 congressional map likely violated the Voting Rights Act.
The three-judge panel rejected the GOP-led state’s congressional map last week and said the legislature didn’t follow that ruling, which ordered them to draw a second majority-Black district.
The judges said the exact opposite of Allen and that implementing a stay order would not serve in the public interest.
After their ruling on Monday the judges wrote, “We repeat that we are deeply troubled that the State enacted a map that the Secretary readily admits does not provide the remedy we said federal law requires. And we are disturbed by the evidence that the State delayed remedial proceedings but did not even nurture the ambition to provide that required remedy.”
In his motion to Justice Thomas, Allen wrote without a stay the state will have “to cede its sovereign redistricting power to a court that will intentionally segregate Alabamians based on race.”
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