Alabama in court

The Alabama state legislature’s second run at Congressional redistricting still didn’t past muster for a three-judge federal court that rejected the new map on the grounds that it’s still likely in violation of the Voting Rights Act, reports AL.com’s Mike Cason.

So the court wants Alabama to move further away from what appears to be racially gerrymandered districts while the Republicans who control the legislature didn’t produce a plan that would risk allowing the Democrats to have a real shot at picking up a second Alabama seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

So where do we go from here? The Supreme Court, if Republican state Attorney General Steve Marshall has his way. He’s appealed the case to the high court. When dealing with the original redistricting map, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s rejection.

Outside of any judicial reversals, a new map is being produced not by the Legislature but by officials that have been appointed by the court.

Richard Allen will oversee the process. He’s been a chief deputy under four Alabama attorneys general, he was the state prison commissioner for five years, and he retired from the U.S. Army Reserve as a brigadier general.

Cartographer David Ely will join Allen in working up three maps by Sept. 25. There will be three days in which people can object to the maps, and then there’ll be a hearing on Oct. 3.

Smile for the camera

Tech workers at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville are testing facial recognition, reports AL.com’s Lee Roop.

That doesn’t mean you can cruise through the gates with a smile at this point, so keep your ID handy. But there are single cameras set up at a handful of gates and multiple cameras at Gate 10 that might be able to identify everyone in a vehicle.

The goal here is to get 40,000-some employees on and off the arsenal quicker and, of course, securely.

The biometrics firm IDEMIA is doing the experiment. That comparny makes Alabama driver licenses as well as scanners that read your TSA card in airports, credit cards and passports.

Highway project

With all the growing talk of widening Interstate 65 — and with some of that already having money put behind it — the hope for a corridor in West Alabama hasn’t gone anyway either, reports AL.com’s John Sharp.

Mayors from Mobile, Tuscaloosa, Thomasville and some area small towns joined a number of state lawmakers and county commissioners at a Thomasville library to express support for the highway.

Thomasville Mayor Sheldon said, quote, “The highway will open up opportunities for the Black Belt of Alabama that we’ve never seen in the history of the Black Belt.”

Republican state Sen. Chris Elliott wasn’t buying the build-it-and-they-will-come aspect. He pointed to the lack of economic development that followed Mississippi’s four-laning of Highway 45.

Highway Project

With all the growing talk of widening Interstate 65 — and with some of that already having money put behind it — the hope for a corridor in West Alabama hasn’t gone anyway either, reports AL.com’s John Sharp.

Mayors from Mobile, Tuscaloosa, Thomasville and some area small towns joined a number of state lawmakers and county commissioners at a Thomasville library to express support for the highway.

Thomasville Mayor Sheldon said, quote, “The highway will open up opportunities for the Black Belt of Alabama that we’ve never seen in the history of the Black Belt.”

Republican state Sen. Chris Elliott wasn’t buying the build-it-and-they-will-come aspect. He pointed to the lack of economic development that followed Mississippi’s four-laning of Highway 45.

Wrong Birmingham

If you see or hear that Birmingham is declaring bankruptcy, don’t panic. That’s referring to the Birmingham in the United Kingdom, not the one an hour and a half southeast of Hackleburg.

To quote Sheriff Andy Taylor, “We got way yonder too much smarts for that.”

After all, it’s been nearly 12 years since we’ve had a massive municipal bankruptcy around here. And that was a county.

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