A federal judge asked Alabama Solicitor General Edmund LaCour whether the Legislature deliberately disregarded the court when it passed a new congressional map that did not create a second district where Black voters have an opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice.

Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus and District Judges Anna M. Manasco and Terry F. Moorer held a hearing Monday at the Hugo L. Black U.S. Courthouse in Birmingham.

The same three judges ruled last year that Alabama’s 2021 map, with one majority Black district out of seven in a state where one-fourth of residents are Black, most likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because it gave Black voters less of an opportunity than other Alabamians to elect a candidate of their choice.

That ruling, affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in June, said the appropriate remedy to the likely violation was a second district where Black voters could elect a candidate of their choice, which they said for practical purposes meant a second district with a majority Black voting age population or “something quite close to it.”

But during Monday’s hearing, LaCour, in response to a questions from the judges, said he did not think the Legislature was required to create a second majority Black district or opportunity district in drawing a new map that would comply with the Voting Rights Act. LaCour said the Legislature’s job was to approve a new map that followed redistricting principles, including some that lawmakers introduced a few weeks ago as part of the legislation creating the new map.

The map approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature in July, leaves District 7 in west Alabama as the only majority Black district, with a Black voting age population of 51%, down from 55% on the previous map. The new map’s next highest proportion of Black voters is in the redrawn District 2, which covers southeast Alabama and where the Black voting age population was increased from 30% to 40%.

But there was no argument Monday that the redrawn District 2 is an opportunity district for Black voters. The state has not disputed analyses of voting results over the last decade that show Black-preferred candidates have almost no chance to win in the district.

Near the end of the hearing, and after the state presented its closing argument, all three judges asked LaCour about how the Legislature viewed the court’s instruction for a second opportunity district, with Moorer finally asking LaCour if there was deliberate disregard for the court’s order.

LaCour said he believed the redrawn District 2 was as close to a second opportunity district as possible when following other redistricting principles.

But the plaintiffs have argued repeatedly in the case that the three-judge court, in its ruling last year affirmed by the Supreme Court, found that illustrative maps by plaintiffs in the litigation showed that it was possible to draw a map with two reasonably configured majority Black districts.

At the conclusion of Monday’s hearing, the judges did not say when they would rule but gave the two sides until Saturday morning to file additional information with the court.

Rep. Napoleon Bracy, D-Mobile, said the judges’ questions to LaCour about not following the court instructions were the most striking part of Monday’s hearing.

“I felt like the judges all had a sense of frustration that they gave out orders on exactly what to do,” Bracy said. “And I felt like the Republican supermajority in the Legislature were totally defiant in the new map that they came up with and are going to just continue to try to draw out the process and try to keep us from having that second Black district in Alabama.”

Bracy said Monday’s hearing raised his expectation that the court will rule in favor of the plaintiffs and block the new map. If that happens, the court will order a special master and cartographer it has appointed to draw a new map that would be used in the 2024 election.

LaCour said the new map has to be considered in a different context than the 2021 map that the court found likely in violation of the Voting Rights Act. LaCour said that’s because of the Legislature’s authority to set redistricting guidelines. Lawmakers added guidelines to the legislation for the 2023 map. One new guideline was naming three communities of interest to be kept as intact at possible — Baldwin and Mobile counties, the Wiregrass, and the Black Belt.

Judge Manasco asked if that meant the Legislature could change its guidelines repeatedly in response to findings of a likely Voting Rights Act violation.

Deuel Ross, an attorney for the plaintiffs, played portions of a video deposition from Rep. Chris Pringle, R-Mobile, co-chairman of the Legislature’s reapportionment committee. Pringle said he was not involved in adding the new guidelines to the legislation and did not know who was.

“I think that was very significant,” Bracy said. “I think that helps our case even more. And it shows that even some of the people that were involved in the process are starting to try to step back away from it and not be connected to some of the things that happened.”

Pringle said he was not involved in drawing the map that won final approval and said LaCour worked with senators to create that map.

Lakeisha Chestnut of Mobile, one of the Black voters who sued to challenge the map, said the judges’ questions made an impression on her during Monday’s hearing.

“One of the things I liked about the judges is that they were very on-point with their questions,” Chestnut said. “Especially to the state because they wanted the state to explain to them ‘Why are we here? Why didn’t you do exactly what was ordered for you to do? Now that the Supreme Court has ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor, this was easy for you guys. But you fumbled the ball.’”

One of the state’s arguments in favor of their map is that it keeps Baldwin and Mobile counties together as a community of interest in District 1, based on their shared interests on the Gulf Coast, Mobile Bay, and the economic and transportation projects that affect both.

The plaintiffs proposed a map that split Mobile County, connecting it with Washington and Monroe Counties in District 2 to help make that a majority Black district. Chestnut and others wore T-shirts on Monday with the image of their proposed map. Chestnut said it was not essential to keep all of Mobile and Baldwin counties in District 1, as the state’s newly adopted guidelines required.

“I say this with all respect to my people in Baldwin County, but there’s really not a whole lot of similarity between Baldwin and Mobile county,” Chestnut said.