The proposal also creates a district with a black voting age population of 42.53 percent, which the legislators say exceeds the percentage suggested for that district by the advocacy group Southern Coalition for Social Justice.

“Several of our critics have incorrectly argued that our plans ‘pack’ African American voters,” the statement says. “We have repeatedly asked Democratic leaders and others to provide a legal case which defines ‘packing’ as either a majority black district or creating enough districts to give black voters a substantially equal and proportional opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. To date, we have not received any case citations to this effect from any of our critic