My intention here was to draw two majority-minority districts, and I was able to succeed rather well. The map has a lot of diagonals, but that’s what you get when your population is so polarized. Here’s the breakdown:
AL-01 (purple, Jo Bonner – R) – Removing Mobile and adding the heavily-Republican southern counties has probably made this one of the most Republican districts in the country.
AL-02 (blue, Bobby Bright – “D”) – Added all of Montgomery and stretched it west in order to make this district the primary majority-black district in the state. It is 56% black, 39% white. Bright would almost assuredly get knocked out in the primary by a black Democrat, who might actually vote with the Democrats sometimes.
AL-03 (yellow, Mike Rogers – R) – Of course, the sacrifice here is that Rogers’ district is pretty much unwinnable for the Dems now. Removing the parts of Montgomery in the district has dropped the black population from about 32% to 24%.
AL-04 (teal, Robert Aderholt – R) – This district didn’t change very much, although it did take in the northern hook of AL-06. Very, very, very safe Republican.
AL-05 (grey, Parker Griffith – “D”) – Also didn’t change this one much. Can’t say I care what happens to Griffith at this point.
AL-06 (red, Spencer Bachus – R) – Loses the aforementioned northern hook around Birmingham and moves a bit to the southeast, which is not going to hurt Bachus any.
AL-07 (green, open) – This is what remains of Artur Davis’s seat after giving a lot of it to AL-02. Takes in more of the Birmingham area to compensate, but remains 52% black, 43% white.
rather than just try to weaken AL-3. If they wanted an open seat for Joe Turnham, they should have simply extended the district to his home in Auburn (Lee Co) and give up some Black Belt territory to the 7th.
But thinking about it, we need to protect Bright if possible. Yes he is possibly the worst Democrat in our caucus, and a party switcher if the Repubs win back the House. But without Bright winning in 2010, we won’t have the clout to force this kind of map. So it is in the interest of progressives to support (and even fund) the reelection of Bright, so his district can credibly be replaced with a black majority one.
My conclusion is that no white Democrat from Alabama is ever going to be acceptable.
for a (likely) more progressive Black Democrat. I had been working on a similar map, actually.
Wouldn’t you think, given the size of Alabama’s African American population, that a second Black majority district would be required under the VRA? It is easy to make, is proportional with AL’s black population %, and would not be a racial gerrymander like NC-12 or the LA one that was struck down.
stole my idea to take in mobile, montgomery, and a collection of rural black counties to make a more Democratic leaning district for the 3rd.
What if Bright loses and Segall wins?