Federal lawsuit on redistricting Alabama Senate could renew gambling considerations

Alabama’s congressional redistricting captured the national headlines about one year ago after a shocking U.S. Supreme Court ruling found the state legislature’s map an illegal racial gerrymander under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

At the same time, little attention has been paid to a similar challenge that continues to play out in a federal court pertaining to a potential redraw of the Alabama State Senate districts in Montgomery and Huntsville.

The result of the litigation, set for trial in mid-November, doesn’t pose a risk to the partisan balance in the State Senate, where Republicans enjoy a commanding 27-8 majority.

But given the 1-vote difference of a gambling measure that failed to advance in the State Senate on April 30, a question has come up: Could a redrawn Senate map pose a political opportunity for another gambling and lottery vote in 2025?

“We haven’t ruled out the possibility of asking for special elections after trial, but any such elections for the new Senate districts would occur in 2025 at the earliest,” said Deuel Ross, deputy director of litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

Senators are skeptical that any redistricting, if authorized by a federal judge, will alter the gambling and lottery landscape even if only a single vote separates the issue from the voters.

Also, lawmakers correctly point out, too many unknowns still exist including if special elections will even be called for if a federal judge orders the Senate map redrawn. The case could also be further slowed by appeals.

“There is a suggestion that, no matter how it turns out, it will not result in a special election,” said Sen. Sam Givhan, R-Huntsville, whose Senate seat is among those being scrutinized within the federal lawsuit.

Federal lawsuit

Some scenarios are at play within a fourth amended complaint that was brought forward by a host of plaintiffs in December. The plaintiffs include, among others, the NAACP; Greater Birmingham Ministries; and Black voters in Montgomery.

The focus is on Huntsville and Montgomery:

• Plaintiffs are seeking two Senate districts that are more compact and with Black voting age populations above 50% in Montgomery. That change would affect Senate District 26 (represented by Democratic Sen. Kirk Hatcher) and Senate District 25 (represented by Republican Sen. Will Barfoot). Both of those senators voted in support of HB151, which received a 20-15 vote on April 30. That legislation was the constitutional amendment on lottery and gambling, and required 21 votes for passage, or three-fifths support from the 35-member Senate. The Senate map, according to the lawsuit, “unnecessarily packs Black votes in Montgomery into District 26, and surgically extracts communities with higher percentages of white (voting age populations) from the core of Montgomery into District 25.”
• Three Senate districts in Huntsville are also problematic, according to the court challenge, in that they split communities of interest in the center of Huntsville. District 7, represented by Givhan, “surgically carves out some but not all of the Black population of central and north Huntsville, splitting the other parts of those communities into Districts 2 and 8,” according to the complaint. District 2 is represented by Republican Sen. Tom Butler and District 8 is represented by Republican Sen. Steve Livingston. Butler and Givhan both voted “No” on HB151, while Livingston was a “Yes” vote.

The focus on Montgomery and Huntsville within the federal lawsuit represents a much more trimmed down version of the original 2021 lawsuit. The original complaint focused on 12 of the state’s 35 Senate districts and 21 of the 105 House districts.

Republican Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen is a named defendant in the case, and his office referred comments to Attorney General Steve Marshall.

Marshall’s Office doesn’t believe the issue will lead to another map redraw.

“We have gathered a wealth of evidence that we believe will show that the Senate districting map is consistent with the Voting Rights Act,” a statement to AL.com reads. “In 2024, all Alabama citizens, regardless of race, have an equal opportunity in the political process (to) elect their preferred candidates.”

Ross said he believes the Senate case is a “straight-forward” voting rights case they are arguing based on Alabama “cracking the Black community in Montgomery” and in Huntsville.

“We’re arguing the state can and should draw at least two districts that Black voters can elect candidates of their choices,” he said. “We expect to go to trial in November, and we have to win and see what the court says.”

A single vote?

A joint status report in the case filed on May 3, laid out a timeline that includes motions being filed by Jun 21 and Oct. 4, followed up with a trial beginning Nov. 12. The trial will be held at the Hugo Black U.S. Courthouse in downtown Birmingham before U.S. District Judge Anna Manasco.

“I cannot tell you that we will win and go for special elections,” Ross said. “I don’t know that. Even if we did, I don’t know if the court will schedule it for 2025. There are too many variables to say we’re having elections.”

Other plaintiffs involved in the case doubt that much will happen before next spring.

Alison Molman, the ACLU of Alabama’s Legal Director, said the ball is in the court’s hands.

“Currently, because the case is not scheduled for trial until November 2024, it is unlikely that any remedy would be in place by the 2025 legislative session,” Moman said.

Some lawmakers, including Givhan, do not believe the issue on gambling and lottery boils down to a single vote anymore.

In fact, some of them say that even in the case of a resignation, illness, or anything else that might tip the 1-vote margin, some lawmakers say the chances are slim that a different outcome will emerge.

“I don’t think we’ll see gambling next year unless it’s lottery only,” Givhan said.

The issue of the single-vote difference has gotten some attention since the legislative session ended, and Republican Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter signaled that he wasn’t interested in revisiting the issue during the 2025 legislative session. The 2026 session would be the final year of the legislature’s quadrennial before the next statewide elections that fall.

“Opinions have changed,” Sen. Chris Elliott, R-Josephine, and one of the 15 “No” votes in the Alabama Senate that led to the defeat of a constitutional amendment that would have allowed voters to decide on statewide lottery and gambling. “The last couple of days (during the legislative session) when the temperatures were turned back up on gambling, I’m convinced there were three to four senators who voted “yes” who would have voted “No” because they were frustrated with the gambling lobby in particular and how much pressure they were under to expand casinos and electronic gaming.”

Rep. Chris Blackshear, R-Smiths Station, said there is too much unpredictability around the issue to make a determination on its fate next year.

“It was almost impossible to predict what would happen on this issue during the last legislation session,” said Blackshear, House sponsor of the gambling legislation approved in a conference committee and ultimately passed out of the Alabama House before it came up one vote short of passage in the Senate.

“One second, the Senate had the votes, and the next second, they didn’t,” he said. “Things were changing by the minute, hour, and day. I think the same can be said as to when another effort might occur to give the people of Alabama an opportunity to vote on gaming. Until we do something, we’re going to continue to pave roads and send kids to college in surrounding states while also allowing the bad actors to continue to profit.”