How Alabama Democrats could blow their Supreme Court victory
This is an opinion column.
Before the US Supreme Court’s decision last week, I said Alabama could end up with seven Republicans in the US Congress.
Silly me.
Things changed. A cold wind blew out of the east.
And now I feel as confident in my prediction as ever.
Yes, the court surprised everybody. In a five-to-four decision, the majority said Alabama’s current congressional district map, drawn by Republicans, violated the Voting Rights Act and it shot down Alabama’s arguments that the VRA was unconstitutional.
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Alabama will have to redraw its maps to create at least two Democratic-leaning congressional districts.
But that’s leaning. Not guaranteed.
If Alabama Democrats have proved anything in the last 15 years, it’s that they will blow a party-competitive election.
And they are primed to do so again, in spectacular fashion.
The Milligan decision should be good news for Dems, but it’s worth pointing out that the state party didn’t really do anything to deserve it. Doing things is not the party’s strength these days.
Other people brought these lawsuits on behalf of Black voters and non-profit advocacy groups, including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, took the financial risk of backing them.
Mostly, the Alabama Democratic Party — what pitiful mess is left of it — sat back and watched.
In a tweet after the decision, Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed thanked those who had made the victory possible, including his father, Democratic party boss Joe Reed. And then he had to delete the tweet because the elder Reed hadn’t actually been a plaintiff in the case.
In the last year, the elder Reed has managed to wrest control back from a younger, more diverse group of Democrats — mostly through shenanigans with rules and fees and lies. Since then, he and his hatchet man, chairman Randy Kelley, have looked like toddlers who got a packed car into gear and now have no idea how to drive.
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Basic functions of the party have atrophied to the point of necrosis. Twitter — despite all that has happened to the platform — is still free, yet the party hasn’t used its account once since Reed and Kelley took over. The same goes for its other social media accounts.
This is a party built to lose competitive elections.
And the US Supreme Court just gave it a new one to lose.
And there’s now room for the Republicans to make the old district more competitive than Democrats are accustomed to.
That crack in the wall has a name — the Singleton map.
Among the plaintiffs in the original lawsuits was state Sen. Bobby Singleton. The Democrat from Greensboro had proposed a redistricting map that would draw two Democratic-leaning districts along county lines. However, neither of those districts would have been majority-Black districts. One would be 48 percent minority voters and the other 42 percent.
To win, setting aside who actually turns out to vote, white Democrats would have to close the gap to 50 percent. Doable, but not guaranteed.
Before the Supreme Court, the lead plaintiffs’ lawyer, Deuell Ross, said the Singleton map would satisfy their concerns.
“What plaintiffs are really looking for is not any sort of guarantee of a second majority-minority district,” Ross said. “As I said, we’d be satisfied with something like the Singleton plan, which Alabama’s expert said would give black voters at least a fair chance, not even a guaranteed chance to elect their candidates of choice in the Second District.”
The parties will go back to the district court this week, where Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has said he intends to fight on. But the easiest thing here for Alabama Republicans to do would be to pass the Singleton plan and suit up.
It’s an ugly fact of Alabama politics, but our parties have become largely color-coded.
And Joe Reed owns a piece of that, just as Republicans do.
An Alabama Democratic Party without young people will lose party competitive races.
Reed’s faction abolished the party committee’s youth caucus.
An Alabama Democratic Party without LGBTQ people will lose party competitive races.
Reed’s faction abolished that caucus, too.
An Alabama Democratic Party without disabled people will lose party competitive races.
Gone. Reed’s group tossed them aside.
The party rewrote state party bylaws last month to nix all those caucuses and weaken others. The old bylaws had been mandated by the DNC.
National party chairman Jamie Harrison has said he’s concerned with what happened at Alabama’s state party meeting last month, and that the DNC would be investigating it.
After last week, he needs to be less concerned than mortified. Without an intervention, Alabama Democrats are set to embarrass the Democratic Party with the whole country watching, and they won’t be able to blame Republicans when it happens.
Democrats win by cobbling together lots of minorities into a majority. Reed doesn’t know how to do that and, worse, seems vehemently opposed to the very idea.
Reed’s faction sent a message last month: If you aren’t behind Joe Reed, you don’t have a place in the Alabama Democratic Party.
But an Alabama Democratic Party without those folks won’t have a place in Congress.
More columns by Kyle Whitmire
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Alabama state Rep. John Rogers has been the feds’ target for 35 years. He isn’t afraid.