The crafty slice-and-dice of Arkansas’s congressional map that splinters Pulaski County’s bloc of Democratic-leaning Black voters into three pieces and loops more white, conservative voters into Republican Rep. French Hill‘s 2nd District is facing renewed resistance.
A surprise decision by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month that’s forcing Alabama to throw out a similarly discriminatory map has injected new energy into legal efforts in Arkansas, where multiple lawsuits have been filed over the map the Arkansas legislature’s Republican supermajority adopted in 2021.
One of those cases bottomed out when a three-judge panel in federal court in Little Rock determined in May that there wasn’t enough proof to show that state legislators meant to discriminate along racial lines with their new map.
Richard Mays, the attorney for six Black Pulaski County voters who brought the suit, is now appealing the panel’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Mays is armed with the argument that intent isn’t actually what matters here, but effect: There’s no need to prove legislators’ intent to discriminate when the discriminatory effect is plain to see.
Here’s a more erudite explainer from Mays himself:
“The three-judge panel said we had to allege facts that would give a reasonable inference that it was the intent of the legislature, the people who voted for the reapportionment bill, that they intended to deprive the plaintiffs and the 22,000 Black voters fractured off to [congressional districts] 4 and 1 from 2 that they intended to discriminate against them based on race,” Mays said.
It was after the three-judge panel ruled against Mays’ clients that the Supreme Court sided with Black voters in Alabama, reinvigorating the case.
“We hope that the Supreme Court will say the three-judge panel erred in requiring us to state facts that would give an inference that the legislature intended to discriminate against that class of individuals. We claim that the VRA and the other laws we’ve cited don’t require evidence of specific intent, but that the standard should be that the result of their actions was to discriminate,” Mays explained.
Former Gov. Asa Hutchinson declined to put his signature on the new congressional map but let it pass into law without his blessing. Mays said Hutchinson’s reluctance is evidence that splitting the Black vote was not on the up and up.
“I think the governor not signing it, we’ve used that as a strong indication that there was some concern, in fact a serious concern by Gov. Hutchinson about the very issues we have raised,” Mays said.
Mays and the plaintiffs he represents —Jackie Williams Simpson, state Rep. Denise Ennett (D-Little Rock), Wanda King, Charles E. Bolden, state Sen. Linda Chesterfield (D-Little Rock and Dr. Anika Whitfield — had planned to appeal before the Supreme Court’s Alabama decision came down. But now, their prospects seem rosier.
“It made us feel the Supreme Court might be more receptive to the appeal than we might have otherwise thought,” Mays said.
The Supreme Court declines to hear most of the cases that come its way, but this one is different. Because of the nature of the suit, the Supreme Court has to take it up. The federal court tracker Democracy Docket explains why:
Unlike the majority of cases appealed to the Supreme Court, the Court must issue a decision in this case. Since the plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of Arkansas’ congressional map under the 14th and 15th Amendments — in addition to the VRA — federal law requires a three-judge panel to hear the claims instead of a single district court judge. Any decision from a three-judge panel is then appealable directly to the Supreme Court — and the Supreme Court has to accept the appeal and issue a decision in the case. The Court could either affirm the lower court’s dismissal, reverse the lower court’s dismissal or hear the case in full.
The process is likely to take a while, though. Mays said he doesn’t expect to hear anything from the Supreme Court until this fall at the earliest.
Another lawsuit challenging these same congressional district lines is still pending. The Christian Ministerial Alliance and a group of Black residents of Pulaski County sued on May 23, saying Arkansas’s 2nd Congressional District was drawn with racial gerrymandering in mind. You can read the full 59-page complaint against Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston and members of the state Board of Election Commissioners here.