Supreme Court lets Alabama use racially gerrymandered map in 2026 midterms

WASHINGTON (CN) — In a win for Republicans, the Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for Alabama to reinstate a congressional map found by lower courts to be an illegal racial gerrymander.

In an apparent 6-3 ruling, the high court vacated the lower court order barring the use of the 2023 map. The court’s unsigned order remanded Alabama Republican’s case to the lower court for review in light of the justices’ new voting rights ruling.

Led by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a Barack Obama appointee, the three liberal justices dissented from the order. Sotomayor argued there was no reason to throw out the constitutional finding of intentional discrimination, which was independent of the legal issues in the case.

“The court today unceremoniously discards the district court’s meticulously documented and supported discriminatory-intent finding and careful remedial order without any sound basis for doing so and without regard for the confusion that will surely ensue,” Sotomayor wrote.

Sotomayor noted the court’s recent ruling on Louisiana’s maps purported to leave an earlier ruling from the justices on Alabama’s maps intact.

“So if Allen is good law anywhere, then it must be good law here,” Sotomayor wrote, referencing the court’s 2023 ruling in Allen v. Mulligan. “This court’s finding of racially discriminatory vote dilution is an inextricable, permanent feature of this case, and Alabama’s willful decision to respond by entrenching rather than remedying that dilution is, as the district court correctly recognized, evidence of discriminatory intent.”

The majority did not explain its reasoning for vacating the lower court ruling and remanding it for further proceedings ahead of Alabama elections scheduled for next week.

Alabama’s yearslong redistricting battle has played out alongside Louisiana’s. After the justices rejected the use of race to ensure minority voters had equal opportunities to participate in the electoral process in Louisiana v. Callais, Alabama told the high court that its 2023 map was lawful and should be used in upcoming elections.

“Alabama’s case mirrors Louisiana’s, and they should end the same way: with this year’s elections run with districts based on lawful policy goals, not race,” the state wrote in an emergency application.

But civil rights groups said that the court’s intervention would create an emergency for Alabama’s ongoing election. Alabama voters have already begun early voting under the court-ordered remedial map, which has been in place for nearly three years.

“No level of effort could prevent late-breaking judicial interference with the status quo from causing chaos and mass confusion when voting under the remedial map alreadycommenced six weeks ago and Election Day is little more than a week away,” the civil rights groups wrote.

Black Alabamians make up 27% of the state’s voting-age population but only represent the majority in one of seven of the state’s congressional districts. Alabama lawmakers have been fighting against adding a second majority-Black district for the better part of five years.

Alabama’s 2021 congressional maps split the Black Belt, breaking Montgomery into two districts for the first time. Voting rights groups challenged the maps under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting practices that discriminate based on race.

The Supreme Court found the map unlawful in 2023, ordering lawmakers to redraw the districts to include a second Black majority district. But the Republican leadership refused to comply.

A panel held a second time that the 2023 maps did not give enough representation to Black Alabamians, enjoining their use. Alabama asked the Supreme Court to halt a court-mandated redraw of its maps, but the justices refused to do so at the time.

Last year, a federal panel held the Legislature intentionally discriminated against Black voters in its 2023 maps by deliberately enacting a plan it knew did not comply with prior court orders and Voting Rights Act standards.

The panel ordered the state to continue using a previously ordered remedial plan, and scheduled further proceedings to consider placing the state under federal preclearance guidelines that were only lifted in 2020.

Alabama says the Supreme Court’s ruling in Callais vindicated its 2023 maps. But with quickly approaching primary elections, the state pushed the justices to issue an emergency order allowing the 2023 maps to be used for the 2026 election in anticipation that the lower courts will now have to rule in its favor.

Follow @KelseyReichmann Follow @kelseyreichmann.bsky.social