Get The Facts: What redrawing Alabama's Congressional map means for your voice in Washington

Lawmakers working to redraw Alabama's Congressional map face their first deadline on Friday, July 7. The deadline requires lawmakers to submit their draft for new districts to the reapportionment committee so the public can weigh in later this month. Why are state lawmakers re-drawing the map? In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the current district map that Alabama lawmakers came up with does not work based on race. Political analyst Marissa Grayson noted that the Supreme Court "determined that the way the lines were drawn violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the section there to protect racial minorities from not having a voice." Grayson went on to say, "We have one district where we call it compacting, where we have created one minority-majority district, that is Rep. Terri Sewell's district. Just having one of those districts is not representative of Alabama, and our districts are supposed to be. So, in Alabama, there is about 25% of voting people who are Black, and that there's one district where they are represented, and about 27% of the population in Alabama is Black."When were they last re-drawn? The most recent map was drawn up after the 2020 Census was completed. After each census, the updated population of a state is used to determine the number of representatives each state gets in Congress. There are a total of 435 seats in the House of Representatives. In Alabama, based on population, the state has seven Congressional representatives elected from the seven Congressional districts spread throughout the state.What is the current political makeup of Alabama's delegation to the House of Representatives? Alabama currently has six Republicans and one Democrat in the House of Representatives. What happens next? The public will be able to weigh in on the proposed maps at a hearing on July 13. Gov. Kay Ivey has called a special session for lawmakers to address this issue. It will begin July 17, 2023, and will conclude on July 21, 2023, the deadline to have the new map finished.