politics
Supreme Court Allows Alabama to Use 2023 Congressional Map for 2026 Elections
The Supreme Court issued a 6-3 per curiam order Tuesday evening lifting a lower court injunction and permitting Alabama to use its 2023 congressional map. The reinstated map shifts the state's delegation from five Republicans and two Democrats to six Republicans and one Democrat.
Jun 2, 9:49 PM·2m read7 sources
Discriminatory mCorrect rebuke
Washington ExaminerAudio version
Tap play to generate a narrated version.
The Supreme Court issued a 6-3 per curiam order allowing Alabama to use its 2023 congressional map for the 2026 elections. The order lifted an injunction that a lower court had placed after finding the map an unlawful racial gerrymander. The Supreme Court had previously directed the lower court to reconsider the case under the standard set in Louisiana v. Callais.
The majority said the lower court failed to follow the Callais ruling by not applying the presumption of legislative good faith and by treating the fact that voters of different races support different parties as evidence of racially polarized voting.
The majority also noted that the lower court had altered the map weeks before Alabama’s rescheduled House primaries and that the lower court’s view that court-imposed maps would be more convenient for the state was not a valid justification.
Alabama had delayed primaries for the 1st, 2nd, 6th, and 7th congressional districts to Aug. 11 after the state began implementing the map. Tuesday’s ruling means those delays will not have been for nothing. The map adopted three years ago features a majority-Black population in only one of Alabama’s seven congressional districts.
Approximately 27% of Alabama’s population is Black. Under the 2024 court-drawn plan, Black residents constituted a majority or near-majority in two of the state’s seven congressional districts.
In 2023, a three-judge panel found that a map crafted by Republican state lawmakers intentionally diluted the voting power of Black citizens. The court had then recommended that the state should feature two districts where Black voters hold a majority or near-majority.
Following the Supreme Court’s recent Louisiana decision, Alabama officials moved to implement the 2023 state-drawn map. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority subsequently agreed to lift the injunction that had blocked the map’s use, returning the case to the three-judge panel for reconsideration in light of the Louisiana ruling.
