GOP speaker claps back after Booker stumps against bid to eradicate red state's Democrat-held districts
EXCLUSIVE: Alabama Republicans are moving to force through a new congressional map that could reduce Democratic representation amid a narrow national GOP House majority, while rebuking Yankee Democrats traveling to the Yellowhammer State to gin up opposition.
State leaders argue the new Supreme Court ruling limiting the use of race in redistricting has changed the legal landscape, giving Alabama grounds to revisit and undo a court-imposed map that recently reshaped its congressional districts to help minority voters.
As attention shifted from Louisiana to Alabama after the high bench tossed the Pelican State's map last week, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., traveled south to stump in Birmingham with fellow Democrats bemoaning legislators’ attempts to force the high bench to reconsider a partially conflicting order from three years prior.
"Well, I'm probably guessing that's first time Cory Booker's ever been in Alabama," Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainville, told Fox News Digital.
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"The thing about it is the people that we represent have lived here most of all of their lives and they're the ones that ask us to do something for them — not the Cory Bookers," Ledbetter said. "And he can nationalize it all he wants to, but it's not going to change facts."
Booker joined Rep. Terri Sewell of Birmingham, the state’s lone Democrat, until the court-mandated redraw produced a Democratic flip by Rep. Shomari Figures of Mobile.
"We are in a storm right now — the question is, where will you stand, will you hold up your light," Booker addressed a redistricting town hall in Birmingham, where he declared voting rights are on the ballot, according to the Alabama Reporter.
The Yankee Democrat said he came south out of obligation to recognize that the Supreme Court upended decades of progress made by Alabamians, according to the city’s NBC affiliate.
Late last month, the Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s 2-Democrat congressional map, in which Reps. Cleo Fields and Troy Carter’s Democratic districts were drawn with race as a significant factor.
Alabama faced a similar fight after the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Allen v. Milligan forced the state to redraw its map, leading to a court-imposed plan that shifted its delegation from a 6-1 Republican split to 5-2 after Republicans created but were rebuked for the so-called "Livingston map" that gave minorities districts with 55% and 40% representation respectively.
The interceding Livingston map, so named for Sen. Steve Livingston, R-Scottsboro, should be revisited and upheld by the Supreme Court in line with its more recent ruling, Ledbetter argued.
In passing the map, Ledbetter said he expects the Supreme Court will be forced to weigh in, via a new legal challenge or otherwise, and that the Louisiana ruling gives Alabama the precedent it needs to undo the high court’s prior ruling and imposed map.
"Once that happens, it gives the governor opportunity to call a special election."
While any action taken by Ledbetter’s legislature would likely spur court action, he suggested quick passage is needed as Alabama’s primaries approach on May 19.
"If we did nothing, we had no shot, and doing this gives us the opportunity to have a ball in the air in case they do overturn [Milligan]."
Gov. Kay Ivey called the legislature to special session Monday to create plans for potential adjustment of upcoming primary elections, if the state is able to force the redistricting issue upon the Supreme Court.
Ledbetter said the Livingston map was fair, and attempted to follow the will of the court originally — adding that he plans to force the issue this week during the special session.
"Our goal is to pass the Livingston map and give the governor the opportunity if the 14th Amendment [provision] is removed; that gives us the opportunity to go forward with it," he said, arguing the earlier ruling relied on legal standards that may now be affected by the court’s more recent decision.
"That's really the only shot we got to be able to do this before the November elections is that map that's existing," he said.
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Pushing back again on Booker and critics of Alabama’s prior attempt to redraw, Ledbetter said the Livingston map, under today’s population footprint, actually gives all voting blocs a better shot.
"When that was redistricted that was a 50-50 seat," he said of one of the Democrat-friendly districts on the map. "It gives everybody a shot and it’s got all seven seats open."
He criticized national Democrats for descending on other states like Virginia to try to tip the scale of their own redistricting, noting that Alabamians elected a Republican supermajority in Montgomery and want to reflect that in Congress.
"I don't think it's right for the courts to overstep their boundary and try to do legislation."
Ivey said in a statement the state has been battling "federal courts and activist groups who think they know Alabama better than Alabama" since the 2020 census.
"By calling the Legislature into a special session, I am ensuring Alabama is prepared should the courts act quickly enough to allow Alabama’s previously drawn congressional and state Senate maps to be used during this election cycle," she said.
With Ledbetter and his partners on the Senate side primed to repass the Livingston map, the Supreme Court would have about a week to step in ahead of the May 19 primary, while Secretary of State Wes Allen told the Montgomery Advertiser that no matter the result of the special session, that date is set in stone — setting up a reason for national attention to turn toward the Yellowhammer State.
Fox News Digital reached out to Booker and Ivey for additional comment.