By Joseph Ax
May 1 (Reuters) – The Republican governors of Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee made clear on Friday they will try to push through congressional maps more favorable to their party ahead of November’s midterm elections, the latest fallout from the U.S. Supreme Court’s seismic voting rights ruling on Wednesday.
Democratic voters, civil rights groups and a Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives meanwhile filed lawsuits challenging Republican Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry’s decision to suspend his state’s congressional primary elections and pursue a new map.
Landry on Thursday postponed the scheduled May 16 primary vote to give state lawmakers time to draw a new map that would dismantle at least one Democratic-held majority-Black U.S. House district, after the Supreme Court found the current map unconstitutional. Early voting had been set to begin on Saturday.
President Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans are fighting to maintain their control of the House, as well as the Senate, in the midterm elections.
The rapid developments underscored how the court’s decision, which severely weakened the landmark Voting Rights Act passed in 1965, has injected a fresh dose of chaos into what had already been a dizzying national fight over redistricting.
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey announced that she had called a special legislative session starting on Monday so lawmakers can consider postponing the May 19 primary election in the hope that the Supreme Court will permit the state to use a different map.
Alabama, where Black voters make up a quarter of the electorate, is currently using a court-ordered map that includes two majority-Black districts out of seven. Both are held by Black Democrats.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision, Alabama immediately filed emergency motions asking the court to allow it to revert to an older map with only a single majority-Black district.
Black voters tend to support Democratic candidates.
“I remain hopeful Alabama will receive a favorable outcome from the U.S. Supreme Court,” Ivey said in a statement.
Republican Tennessee Governor Bill Lee on Friday also called a special legislative session beginning on Tuesday to “review” the state’s congressional map, saying in a statement that officials must “ensure our congressional districts accurately reflect the will of Tennessee voters.”
And Republican South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster suggested that he would like his state’s legislature to consider a new map. South Carolina’s lone Democratic seat, a majority-Black district that includes parts of the capital Columbia, is represented by longtime U.S. Representative Jim Clyburn.
“In light of the court’s most recent decision on the Voting Rights Act, it would be appropriate for the General Assembly to ensure that South Carolina’s congressional map still complies with all requirements of federal law and the U.S. Constitution,” McMaster wrote on X.
In Louisiana, the new lawsuits argued that Landry had overstepped his authority in suspending the election and that allowing the contests for other offices to proceed would confuse voters. The plaintiffs also noted that at least some absentee ballots had already been cast.
“Louisiana is following the law,” Landry said in response to the litigation in a social media post on Friday.
In a process called redistricting, the boundaries of legislative districts across the United States are reconfigured to reflect population changes as measured by the national census conducted every 10 years. Redistricting typically has been carried out by state legislatures once per decade.
Republicans and Democrats have been waging a multistate redistricting fight ignited last year when Trump initiated an unprecedented mid-decade effort to redraw maps in Republican-led states, starting with Texas.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Donna Bryson and Will Dunham)
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