The Supreme Court is set to hear a case concerning gerrymandering in Alabama, specifically the recent case spearheaded by Alabama Republicans. Generally, as is the case with the current Alabama ballyhoo, politicians squeeze or stretch the lines of voting districts in an effort to stack them in their favor or to hurt their opponent.
The case that the Supreme Court will be hearing concerns changes made in 2010 by Alabama’s majority Republican legislature which consolidated black voters into already majority black districts. The intended outcome of this is obvious: if Southern black voters, who generally vote for Democrats, are consolidated together into voting districts, their vote will have less of an impact in elections.
Our law actually allows for politicians to lump people into voting districts to stack bigger districts with their constituents in an effort to affect the outcome of elections. Therefore, it is not the indecency of southern conservatives that is the root of this problem, it is the age-old practice of gerrymandering that should truly be on trial.