As the old saying goes, nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes. One thing that could be added to the list is legal action taken after any reapportionment effort in Alabama.
State Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton (D-Greensboro) is among the plaintiffs, including his colleague, State Sen. Rodger Smitherman (D-Birmingham), alleging the GOP-led legislature’s recently drawn congressional districts were “racially gerrymandered.”
During an appearance on Friday’s broadcast of Alabama Public Television’s “Capitol Journal,” Singleton expressed his optimism over the suit that could force the Alabama Legislature to create a second majority-minority congressional district out of Alabama’s allotted seven congressional districts.
“[W]e African-Americans feel that we can have more than one congressional district,” he said. “We feel that the congressional district that we do have currently that is by Congresswoman Terri Sewell — it is a district that is gerrymandered. It is packing all of the black folk into one area. We feel that you can have a district in Jefferson County and across the Black Belt, which would give us two districts across the state.”
“I feel really, really good about that,” Singleton continued. “I think that the judges are going to rule on that in a couple of days. And we’re hoping that we could probably get the legislature to do something prior to qualifying day on [January 28]. But we don’t think that is going to happen now. But at the end of the day, even if a special magistrate has to step in and order a special election, I feel really good about a win in that lawsuit.”
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly, and host of Mobile’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on FM Talk 106.5.
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