{"id":637480,"date":"2026-05-11T23:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T23:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/637480\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T23:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T23:47:08","slug":"court-clears-way-for-alabama-to-use-congressional-map-blocked-by-lower-court-as-racially-discriminatory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/637480\/","title":{"rendered":"Court clears way for Alabama to use congressional map blocked by lower court as racially discriminatory"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court on Monday afternoon cleared the way for Alabama to use a congressional map that a lower court had blocked on the ground that it violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting. The justices threw out<\/a> the lower-court order barring Alabama from using the map, which it had adopted in 2023, and sent the dispute back to the lower court for another look.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from Monday\u2019s decision, in a four-page opinion joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. In her view, the court\u2019s order was \u201cinappropriate and will cause only confusion as Alabamians begin to vote in the elections scheduled for next week.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dispute began five years ago, when Alabama enacted a new congressional map in the wake of the 2020 census. A group of Black voters and civil rights organizations went to federal court, where they alleged that the new map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, because it spread Black voters in southern Alabama across three congressional districts, leaving them a minority in each.<\/p>\n

The district court agreed that the 2021 map likely violated Section 2, and it barred the state from using the map. The Supreme Court upheld that decision in 2023 in Allen v. Milligan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Later that year, Alabama adopted a new map. But a federal court concluded that the 2023 map also likely violated Section 2 and prohibited the state from using it. The Supreme Court declined to pause the lower court\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n

A court-appointed special master ultimately created a new map, which the district court ordered the state to use going forward. In 2025, the court ruled after a trial that the 2023 map did indeed violate the VRA. It reasoned that the map was \u201can intentional effort to dilute Black Alabamians\u2019 voting strength and evade the unambiguous requirements of court orders standing in the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alabama went to the Supreme Court, which delayed its consideration of the state\u2019s appeals until after the justices issued their April 29 decision in Louisiana v. Callais<\/a>, in which it struck down Louisiana\u2019s congressional map. On Friday, the state \u2013 which had asked the justices to expedite their consideration of those appeals \u2013 also sought to have the lower-court orders barring Alabama from using the 2023 map put on hold immediately because the justices are not scheduled to issue orders from their next private conference until Monday, May 18, just one day before the state\u2019s primary election is currently scheduled to take place.<\/p>\n

Alabama told<\/a> the justices on Friday that its \u201ccase mirrors Louisiana\u2019s, and they should end the same way: with this year\u2019s elections run with districts based on lawful policy goals, not race.\u201d When it drew the 2023 map, Alabama said, it sought to \u201cachiev[e] the State\u2019s neutral goals (like protecting incumbents) and refus[ed] to let race predominate.\u201d And on Saturday, Alabama told<\/a> the court, the state\u2019s Legislature passed a law allowing \u201ca special primary election for affected Congressional districts\u201d if a federal court permits the state to restore the 2023 map.<\/p>\n

In an unsigned, one-paragraph order<\/a> on Monday afternoon, the Supreme Court granted Alabama\u2019s appeal and sent the dispute back to the lower court for another look in light of its ruling in Callais. The justices did not provide any additional explanation for their decision.<\/p>\n

In her dissent, Sotomayor contended that there was \u201cno reason\u201d for the court to send the case back to the lower court because the district court had also concluded that \u201cAlabama violated the Fourteenth Amendment by intentionally diluting the votes of Black voters in Alabama. That constitutional finding of intentional discrimination is independent of,\u201d she wrote, \u201cand unaffected by, any of the legal issues discussed in Callais.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in any event, Sotomayor continued, \u201cit still would not be appropriate to vacate the decision below at this time. That is because,\u201d she explained, \u201cAlabama\u2019s congressional primary election is next week, and vacating the District Court\u2019s injunction will immediately replace the current map with Alabama\u2019s 2023 Redistricting Plan until the District Court acts, even though voting has already begun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, Sotomayor noted, \u201cthe District Court remains free on remand to decide for itself whether Callais has any bearing on its Fourteenth Amendment analysis or if its prior reasoning is unaffected by that decision.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Supreme Court on Monday afternoon cleared the way for Alabama to use a congressional map that a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-637480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}