Beyond Gerrymandering: Black Numbers Matter in Redistricting




For ages in this country's two-party electoral system, states have fought to give control of Congress to one party or the other.  There are voting districts in which votes are cast to determine which party will control each district's vote in the House of Representatives.  One of the ways a party might seek to gain control is by how the district boundaries are drawn.  Historically, the majority party within a state, in some cases, has gone to great lengths to weave district boundaries to include certain areas and exclude certain areas to ensure the minority party will have its ballot-box power diluted by including only a small fraction of the total vote in each district. The word "Gerrymandering" was named after Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry, who signed a bill in 1812 that created a partisan district in Boston that was roughly shaped like a salamander.

When states' census numbers are tallied every 10 years, the states usually have to re-draw district lines to match changes in populations.

On June 8, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the Republican-controlled state of Alabama had engaged in improper conduct when drawing its electoral map in 2021.  Democrats had challenged that map, arguing that their black voters were under-represented in districts.  Their argument was that the map drawn resulted in six majority-white districts and only one majority-black district. The majority opinion stated that the result of the 2021 map ran afoul of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, disallowed the redistricting, and ordered Alabama to create a second majority-black district because black people comprised 27% of Alabama's population.

Clarence Thomas, voting with the minority, opined that the 1965 Voting Rights Act did not require Alabama to "intentionally redraw its longstanding congressional districts so that black voters can control a number of seats roughly proportional to the black share of the state's population."  In fact, he said, the Constitution would not permit such legislation. 

Indeed, it appears that our U.S. Supreme Court has engaged in that conduct. At least in the context of numbers of one race v. another race in a district, regardless of the shape of the district, states may have to take into account the total percentage of a minority and make sure their redistricting does not dilute that race's voting power.

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