This is an opinion column.
Attorney General Steve Marshall is the state’s top lawyer, but Edmund LaCour is the man who shows up in court.
As solicitor general, LaCour argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in Allen v. Milligan, the case that was supposed to gut what’s left of the Voting Rights Act.
He lost.
And on Monday, it was LaCour, again, who represented the state in federal court, where a panel of three judges must decide whether to accept the state’s latest congressional districting map or draw a new map for the state.
But depositions in that court record show LaCour has played a bigger role than Alabama’s courtroom lawyer. In sworn testimony, lawmakers said LaCour helped draw maps, inserted pages of legislative findings into the enabling legislation, and handed out talking points for Republican lawmakers to use on the State House floor.
All of which begs the question, when LaCour represents the state in court, who is he representing?
The Milligan case was supposed to be the arrow through the heart of the Voting Rights Act, killing the Section 2 provisions that force states like Alabama to respect the rights of minority voters.
Last year, LaCour argued this case before the United States Supreme Court, where Justice Samuel Alito, usually a more conservative voice, called his arguments “far-reaching.”
Instead of a death blow, the Milligan case became a breath of life for minority voting rights. The high court ruled for the plaintiffs and sent the case back for the lower court to resolve.
Now, back in Birmingham, LaCour wants a do-over.
At the bottom, the case is simple. It’s about how many majority Black congressional districts Alabama should have. One or two? But the answer has implications for states everywhere.
Before the court Monday, LaCour argued that the legal proceedings should essentially start over and that Alabama doesn’t need to draw a second majority Black congressional district, no matter that the US Supreme Court said that it does.
After the US Supreme Court ruling in June, the Alabama Legislature quickly passed a new Congressional map in July. That map guarantees Black voters one representative in Congress, not two. Same setup the state has had for decades. Same setup that failed in Washington.
Before the federal panel of three judges Monday, LaCour said the burden again is on the plaintiffs to argue that the new Alabama map is unfair.
The judges — two of them Trump appointees — seemed exhausted already.
“To cut to the chase, are we in the first inning of the first game of these proceedings today?” U.S. Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus asked.
Marcus had to ask twice as LaCour hemmed and hawed. Eventually, LaCour said yes.
What Alabama and LaCour want is to restart the process all over again. Under court precedents, plaintiffs have the burden to prove the state has violated the rights of Black voters — a series of legal hurdles called the Gingles preconditions that the Milligan plaintiffs cleared once already.
Now that the Alabama Legislature has passed a new map, LaCour wants the plaintiffs to pass those tests again.
If he gets what he wants, the best the plaintiffs might hope for is an infinite loop — the state draws a map, Black people sue, the state loses, the state appeals, the state loses, the state draws a new map, Black people sue again … and so on, forever.
All the while, Alabama keeps holding elections under unconstitutional maps, as it did in 2022, denying Black voters the districts the U.S. Supreme Court says they are due.
LaCour told the court he still thinks Alabama can win this case without creating a second majority Black district, despite having lost that argument once already before the nation’s highest court.
Throughout the hearing the judges were polite, but by the end that patience seemed to wear thin.
“Mr. LaCour, what I hear you saying is the State of Alabama deliberately chose to disregard our instructions to draw two majority Black districts where minority candidates could be chosen,” U.S. District Judge Terry F. Moorer asked.
LaCour stammered, “Your honor, it is our position that the Legislature …”
“I’m not asking your position,” Judge Moorer said. “Did they or did they not? Did they disregard it? Did they deliberately disregard it or did they not?”
LaCour said the new map was as far as the state was willing to go.
But as court documents showed, LaCour isn’t just defending the maps in court. He helped get them passed in the Alabama Legislature.
Last week the plaintiffs took depositions from key state lawmakers who led the reapportionment committee, including committee co-chair, Rep. Chris Pringle, R-Mobile. In sworn testimony, Pringle said the committees had an unusual map maker assisting them through the process — Edmund LaCour.
“How did you know he drew maps?” the plaintiffs’ attorney asked in the deposition.
“He was in the room across from me in reapportionment working on maps,” Pringle said.
Pringle said he lost contact with LaCour during the special session but LaCour continued to advise the state senators in the chamber upstairs.
When the Legislature eventually passed its latest map, it also included six pages of what the bill called legislative findings.
But depositions from the two co-chairs of the redistricting committee showed that those legislative findings didn’t come from lawmakers. Neither Pringle nor Senate co-chair Steve Livingston knew why those pages were in the bill they passed.
But Livingston knew who added that language. It wasn’t anything generated by lawmakers, but rather something that came from Edmund LaCour, he said under oath.
The plaintiffs also asked Livingston about a memo of talking points he was to use when pushing the bill through the legislature. Those talking points had also come from LaCour, too, Livingston said.
Let’s be clear about what’s happening here.
Someone is trying to suppress the political influence of Black voters.
Someone is trying to do so despite the United State Supreme Court already ruling against the state.
And that someone is LaCour.
The state solicitor is supposed to represent all of Alabama, but in court Monday, that didn’t happen.
Instead, he defended a map he helped draw, “legislative findings” he put in the bill, and an argument for voter suppression the U.S. Supreme Court already rejected.
He might be solicitor for the state of Alabama, but in court Monday it wasn’t clear that Edmund LaCour represented anyone other than Edmund LaCour.
More columns by Kyle Whitmire
Tommy Tuberville leaves Alabama lost in space
Alabama’s new congressional map is a feat of Republican cowardice
A fight for rights and control in a Black Belt town without elections