Federal Court Throws Out Alabama Republicans’ Racist Congressional Map

A federal court on Tuesday struck down Alabama Republicans’ latest discriminatory congressional map and assigned a special master to ensure the state actually creates a second majority-Black district this time around.

The Supreme Court shocked everyone in June, ruling 5–4 that Republican-drawn congressional districts in Alabama discriminated against Black voters under the Voting Rights Act. The high court ordered Alabama to redraw the map to include at least two majority-Black districts. But Alabama has repeatedly tried to redraw districts in a way that keeps the status quo and dilutes Black votes.

“Based on the evidence before us, including testimony from the Legislators, we have no reason to believe that allowing the Legislature still another opportunity to draw yet another map will yield a map that includes an additional opportunity district,” the three-judge panel said in the Tuesday ruling. “We are deeply troubled that the State enacted a map that the State readily admits does not provide the remedy we said federal law requires.”

“We are disturbed by the evidence that the State delayed remedial proceedings but ultimately did not even nurture the ambition to provide the required remedy.”

The judges assigned a special master to oversee the remedial map. Alabama has until October 1 to finalize a new map to ensure that there is enough time to prepare for the 2024 election, according to Republican Secretary of State Wes Allen. State officials will need to reassign voters and print and distribute ballots.

More than a quarter of Alabama residents are Black, but currently only one of Alabama’s seven congressional districts is majority-Black. Black voters are scattered throughout the other districts, dramatically reducing their ability to elect their preferred candidates. As a result of the racial gerrymandering, the state only has one Black representative.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the three liberal justices in the June Supreme Court ruling that found Alabama’s congressional map illegally diluted Black votes. Roberts wrote the majority opinion, and repeatedly rejected Alabama’s arguments in favor of keeping the current map as “unpersuasive” or of “little merit.”

The Supreme Court’s ruling—and the outcome of the new map in Alabama—could have bigger implications across the South, and even help Democrats retake the House in 2024. Several other states including Louisiana, South Carolina, and Georgia are facing legal challenges to their racially gerrymandered districts. Those states could see a very different map in the coming election.

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump’s former chief of staff and co-defendant in the Georgia indictment may flip, one of the most high-profile defections from Team Trump yet.

Mark Meadows served as White House chief of staff at the end of Trump’s presidency. He was charged alongside Trump and 17 other co-defendants with felony racketeering for trying to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results. At his hearing last week, Meadows’s legal team signaled that their main defense strategy will include blaming Trump as the principal force behind efforts to thwart the election, Politico reported Tuesday.

Meadows organized and participated in the now-infamous phone call during which Trump begged Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” 11,780 votes—the exact amount needed to flip the state’s election results to Trump. Meadows also sent an email pressuring Georgia Republicans to sign slates of fake pro-Trump electors.

“What I didn’t want to happen was for the campaign to prevail in court action and not have this [organized]”, Meadows said during his August 28 hearing.

When asked why, he explained, “Because I knew I’d be yelled at by the president of the United States.”

Meadows has already shown himself willing to undermine his former boss in order to save his own skin. In mid-August, Meadows and former Vice President Mike Pence said separately that they had no knowledge of Trump declassifying a large number of documents, completely undermining the former president’s main defense in the Mar-a-Lago case.

Other former Trump allies are also starting to turn. In July, a Mar-a-Lago employee named Yuscil Taveras changed his testimony in the indictment against Trump for mishandling classified documents. Taveras was assigned a new public defender in July, replacing his Trump-appointed lawyer, and “immediately” recanted his testimony denying that there had been any conversations about security footage that prosecutors subpoenaed in 2022 as part of the investigation.

Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani may also soon turn on his boss (who is refusing to pay him). Giuliani met in June with special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating Trump in Florida for mishandling classified documents and in Washington for trying to overturn the 2020 election. It’s not clear what happened during the meeting, but it’s not unthinkable that Giuliani may try to reach a deal with prosecutors to save his own skin.

Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee ordered Thursday that all court proceedings in Georgia’s election interference case against former President Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants will be televised and livestreamed.

Trump has been indicted four times. In the Georgia case, he faces 13 charges, including racketeering, related to his attempts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.

Judge Tanya Chutkan has set the trial date for March 4, 2024, which falls one day before Super Tuesday, the busiest day in the Republican presidential primaries. McAfee says the trials will be accessible to watch through the Fulton County Court YouTube channel.

McAfee also said journalists will be able to use cell phones and computers inside the courtroom for non-recording purposes during the trial and hearings—a departure from the federal election interference case against Trump.

Read more at the Atlanta-Journal Constitution.

Several Republican figures have spoken out against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell since his second freezing episode while addressing reporters on Wednesday.

The 81-year-old senator was left speechless in the middle of a press conference. The first time this happened was a little over a month ago. In both instances, his aides had to intervene, as he was unable to answer the reporter’s questions.

And Republicans seem to be finally turning on McConnell.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has been the most outspoken member of the House to address McConnell’s episode, saying on Wednesday that he is unfit for office. 

“Severe aging health issues and/or mental health incompetence in our nation’s leaders MUST be addressed,” Greene wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Representative Matt Gaetz commented “Yikes” when reposting the video of McConnell freezing.

Conservative activist Ned Ryun went on Fox News and said McConnell is “very much expendable.” He predicts that Senator John Thune could replace him.

“Great for [McConnell] blocking Garland, but that only worked because Donald Trump won,” Ryun told Laura Ingraham on Fox, referring to McConnell’s blocking of a Supreme Court justice during the Obama administration.

Political commentator Bill O’Reilly is also pushing for McConnell’s resignation.

“It looks like he’s gonna have a stroke,” O’Reilly told News Nation’s Chris Cuomo. “Every American should email Senator McConnell’s office tomorrow, every American and say, ‘Please, please resign for the sake of your health.’”

Democrats are pushing for a subpoena of Jared Kushner’s Saudi-backed investment firm.

Representative Jamie Raskin, ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, on Thursday sent a letter to Chairman James Comer about Kushner, former President Trump’s son-in-law, and his work with Affinity Partners. Kushner founded the firm six months after leaving the White House, thanks in large part to hefty investments from the Saudi government and other Gulf nations.

The whole thing reeks so badly of corruption that even Comer earlier this month said Kushner “crossed the line of ethics” by accepting $2 billion from Saudi’s sovereign wealth fund, which is chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Raskin is demanding Affinity Partners be subpoenaed for records that committee Democrats have been after for more than a year. And he’s reminding Comer about his own skepticism of what Kushner has done.

“I am encouraged by your recent acknowledgment that ‘what Kushner did crossed the line of ethics’ and your repeated assertions that our Committee is ‘investigating foreign nationals’ attempts to target and coerce high-ranking U.S. officials’ family members by providing money or other benefits in exchange for certain actions,’” Raskin wrote in his letter. “In light of these concerns, I urge you to pursue a serious and objective investigation by issuing a subpoena to Affinity.”

Raskin noted his February request to Affinity for documents “regarding its receipt of billions of dollars from Gulf monarchies shortly after Mr. Kushner left a senior White House position he used to reshape U.S. foreign policy towards Saudi Arabia and the Middle East in Saudi Arabia’s favor—a request you have thus far allowed Mr. Kushner to ignore and defy.”

There’s already plenty of evidence about why Kushner’s work is so troubling.

A report from The Intercept during the Trump years found that MBS bragged about having Kushner “in his pocket.” Kushner was also deeply involved in a $110 billion weapons sale to Saudi Arabia in 2017, according to reporting from The New York Times. And, of course, his father-in-law is the Republican Party’s front-runner for 2024—meaning Kushner could be making similar deals again soon.

While a lot of Raskin’s letter is focused on Saudi Arabia, other Gulf Nations are also closely involved with Kushner’s private equity firm. The United Arab Emirates and Qatar invested about $200 million each in Affinity.