Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for AL.com and 2023 winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Sign up for his newsletter, Alabamafication, below. It’s free.
Every 10 years, Alabama’s political and business heavies get a little nervous. As the U.S. Census Bureau counts heads, their stomachs tie in knots and they turn a little green with concern.
Is this the year Alabama goes from seven representatives in Congress to six?
It’s generally understood that seven is more than six. The children in my daughter’s Pre-K class get that.
It’s also understood that, when it comes to representation in Congress, more is better than less.
Seven is better than six. Pretty simple stuff.
Which is odd, because right now, in federal court, Alabama’s lawyers are arguing — ostensibly on behalf of two south Alabama counties — something very different.
That one is greater than two.
First, let’s get through what’s really going on here. The Alabama AG and the solicitor general are supposed to represent Alabama. But in reality, they’re representing their political party.
They are trying to ensure that Alabama has as many Republican seats in Congress as possible, and they don’t care whose interests they have to trample to get what they want.
Because of the racial polarization of Alabama politics, that means they are trying to ensure as many white representatives as possible and fewer Black ones.
But the Voting Rights Act stands in their way, and the federal courts have told them to knock it off.
Twice federal judges have ordered the state to draw two majority-Black congressional districts, or something close to it. The Republicans in the Legislature — taking direction from the AG’s office — have stubbornly refused, and they’ve come up with some silly excuses.
Like arguing one is greater than two.
In its court filings, the state says it must protect what are called “communities of interest” — geographic clusters of demographically similar citizens with similar needs.
The state has defined three such communities it doesn’t wish to divide — the Black Belt, the Wiregrass and the Coastal Counties. (Evidently, north Alabama isn’t that interesting, community-wise.)
In its filings, the state defines three "communities of interest" because north Alabama must not be that interesting.
In this little board game of theirs, if you keep Mobile and Baldwin Counties whole and together in one congressional district, it becomes nearly impossible to draw a second majority-Black district anywhere else.
That’s the real object here — not to keep Mobile and Baldwin together but to divide Black voters into districts where they can’t elect candidates of their choosing.
So the AG and solicitor general have argued that this Coastal Community is sacrosanct and these two counties are indivisible — because of cultural similarities like seafood and Mardi Gras.
Really.
With straight faces, they tell these judges that a place such as Prichard in Mobile County and a burb like Fairhope in Baldwin might as well be the same thing because of Fat Tuesdays and fried fish platters.
But that ignores the simple thing — that having two representatives in Congress could be better for this Coastal Community.
That two is greater than one. Especially if those two representatives were of different parties.
Just ask north Alabama.
Recently Colorado decided it wanted something Huntsville had — the U.S. Space Command. Because Colorado is a blue state and there was a Democrat in the White House, they just took it. Alabama had no Democrat but Rep. Terri Sewell to speak on its behalf, and her voice — fight as she did — wasn’t enough.
Not only are two votes better than one, but it’s a hedge against partisan patronage politics when the winds change. And in the event that two such lawmakers were to work together, they might actually do things for the coast that aren’t possible now, like literal bridge-building.
But you won’t find any such argument in the state’s briefs because the state doesn’t really care about the Coastal Community in South Alabama. It cares about maintaining a partisan advantage in Washington, D.C. That’s it.
This is the poisonous duplicity of Alabama politics in action — public officials once again doing harm to the things they claim to care for.
Alabama deserves better. It needs better.
But if this state wants better, it has to demand better. It has to elect better officials.
People who understand that two is greater than one.
Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for AL.com and the 2023 recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. Sign up for his weekly newsletter and get “Alabamafication” in your inbox every Wednesday.
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