The Supreme Court cleared the way for Alabama to use a congressional map that eliminates one of the state's two majority-Black districts in the midterm elections, delivering a 6-3 victory for Republicans and marking another setback for Black voters navigating the post-Voting Rights Act landscape.
The emergency ruling landed just weeks after the court's seismic decision in Louisiana v Callais, which effectively gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act by requiring plaintiffs to prove intentional discrimination. That higher bar has already reshaped how voting rights challenges work in practice.
The Alabama fight traces back to redistricting after the 2020 census, when the state drew a map with six Republican districts and one Democratic one. That single Democratic district was also the only majority-Black district in Alabama. When Black voters sued, arguing the plan violated the Voting Rights Act and diluted their influence, a three-judge panel agreed and ordered Alabama to redraw the map to include two districts where Black voters either held a voting-age majority or came close.
The Supreme Court upheld that decision in 2023 in a 5-4 vote. But when Alabama Republicans sat down to redraw in 2023, they produced a map that still contained only one majority-Black district. The court blocked it again, this time finding discriminatory intent, and appointed a special master to draft a new plan. That plan, which included two majority-Black districts, held through the 2024 election. Both districts elected Black Democrats.
The Callais ruling changed everything. After that decision weakened voting rights protections, Alabama Republicans made an aggressive move, rescheduling their fast-approaching primaries to try implementing the old 2023 map once more. On May 26, a three-judge panel blocked the attempt again, finding the map tainted by intentional race-based discrimination. The judges wrote they could not require voters to cast ballots under a plan with that stain.
The Supreme Court's ruling, however, cleared that hurdle, handing Republicans a major advantage heading into the cycle and leaving voting rights advocates scrambling to find new legal tools in a court increasingly hostile to their claims.
Author James Rodriguez: "This is what happens when the court dismantles the machinery used to protect voters and then lets politicians immediately exploit the wreckage."
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