WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted Alabama the right to use a congressional map that favors Republicans in the upcoming elections, overriding a lower court’s ruling that had determined the redistricting plan was intentionally discriminatory against Black voters.
This decision allows Alabama to implement a map that has only one out of seven congressional districts with a majority-Black population. The ruling saw dissent from the three liberal justices on the court.
The Supreme Court’s order is part of a broader narrative surrounding redistricting efforts, coinciding with initiatives by former President Donald Trump aimed at maintaining a slim Republican majority in the House during the November elections. This ruling was particularly timely as it came just a day before a critical deadline set by Republican Governor Kay Ivey, who had previously extended the timeline for utilizing the contested map in special primary elections scheduled for August.
Alabama’s Republican leadership escalated the matter to the Supreme Court following a three-judge panel’s refusal to permit the use of the preferred map. This panel had mandated the state to revert to a court-drawn map employed in the 2024 elections, which successfully elected two Black Democrats to Congress. Under this court-drawn map, Black residents comprise a majority or nearly so in two of the state’s seven congressional districts.
Deuel Ross, the director of litigation for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, criticized the Supreme Court’s decision. He claimed that it legitimizes discriminatory practices against Black voters and undermines the principles of fair representation. Ross emphasized the fund’s commitment to ensuring that Alabama voters receive the representation they deserve.
In defense of the state’s actions, Attorney General Steve Marshall argued that Alabama did not intentionally discriminate against Black residents and that elections this year should be conducted under a map chosen by lawmakers rather than judges.
The appeal follows a recent Supreme Court ruling that dismantled a Black-majority district in Louisiana and weakened protections under the federal Voting Rights Act. This ruling has prompted Republican-led states, including Alabama, to reconfigure voting districts that traditionally have large minority populations that lean Democratic.
The legal battle surrounding Alabama’s congressional map extends several years back. A three-judge panel in 2023 concluded that the map drawn by Republican lawmakers deliberately diluted the voting power of Black citizens. The court indicated that, given the state’s 27% Black population, there should be two districts where Black voters hold a majority or close to it.
Following the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Louisiana case, Alabama’s officials sought to implement the 2023 state-drawn map. The conservative majority of the Supreme Court lifted the injunction that had previously barred the map’s usage and directed the case back to the three-judge panel for further consideration in light of the Louisiana ruling.
As voters prepared to participate in Alabama’s primaries on May 19, Governor Ivey announced new special primaries for August 11 in four congressional districts impacted by the map change.
The judicial panel reaffirmed its initial stance, citing “undisputed evidence” of intentional racial discrimination, and proposed that the special congressional primaries should proceed under the previously court-approved districts.
However, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority countered this assertion in an unsigned opinion, suggesting that the lower court did not adequately respect the presumption of legislative good faith.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissent, criticized her colleagues for enabling a situation that could lead to “a chaotic election, held under a never-before-used congressional map that intentionally discriminates against Black Alabamians.”
The previous court-ordered map had facilitated the election of U.S. Representative Shomari Figures, a Black Democrat, while the newly reinstated map offers the GOP a chance to reclaim a congressional seat in southern Alabama.
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Associated Press writer Kim Chandler contributed to this report from Montgomery, Ala.
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