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Commentary By Ilya Shapiro

Alabama’s New Congressional Map Fits the Justices’ Ruling

Governance Supreme Court

It’s the voting-rights plaintiffs who are defiant. The court never ordered the creation of a second black district.

The legal left recently took a break from assailing the Supreme Court’s integrity to defend its honor. After the high court invalidated Alabama’s congressional map, lawmakers responded by drawing a new one that doesn’t include two majority-black districts, but instead reduces the black majority in one district a few points and expands the minority in another to about 40%. The media talking point is that the state is “defying” the justices.

This charge is a case of gaslighting. It is also a remarkable act of projection, because the challengers to Alabama’s new map are asking a federal district court to defy the justices by ordering racially proportionate redistricting, which the Supreme Court rejected.

Continue reading the entire piece here at The Wall Street Journal (paywall)

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Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of Constitutional Studies at the Manhattan Institute. Follow him on Twitter here.

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