On June 8, 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Alabama’s state congressional redistricting plan adopted on November 4, 2021, violated the Voting Rights Act and must be redrawn to include a second majority-black district. The Supreme Court issued a surprising 5-4 ruling in favor of Black voters in a congressional redistricting case from Alabama, with two conservative justices joining liberals in rejecting a Republican-led effort to weaken a landmark voting rights law. This decision to redraw congressional district lines could affect political maps across the South for years to come. Secretary of State Wes Allen said in a statement: “I am disappointed in today’s Supreme Court opinion but it remains the commitment of the Secretary of State’s Office to comply with all applicable election laws.”
The Supreme Court’s ruling is likely to have effects beyond Alabama. Republicans currently hold a slim majority in the U.S. House, and this decision could provide a roadmap for other gerrymandering challenges.
Just in the South, there are similar court challenges to congressional maps in Louisiana, South Carolina, and Georgia, where the Voting Rights Act would apply. Alabama was apportioned seven seats in the U.S. House of Representatives after the 2020 census, the same number it received after the 2010 census. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh aligned with the court’s liberals in affirming a lower-court ruling that found a likely violation of the Voting Rights Act in an Alabama congressional map with one majority Black seat out of seven districts in a state where more than one in four residents are Black. The state now will have to draw a new map for next year’s elections.
The decision was keenly anticipated for its potential effect on control of the closely divided U.S. House of Representatives. Because of the ruling, new maps are likely in Alabama and Louisiana that could allow Democratic-leaning Black voters to elect their preferred candidates in two more congressional districts. The outcome was unexpected in that the court had allowed the challenged Alabama map to be used for the 2022 elections. In arguments last October the justices appeared willing to make it harder to challenge redistricting plans as racially discriminatory under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Chief Justice John Roberts suggested last year that he was open to changes in the way courts weigh discrimination claims under the part of the law known as section 2. In this decision, Roberts wrote that the court was declining “to recast our section 2 case law as Alabama requests.” Roberts also was part of conservative high-court majorities in earlier cases that made it harder for racial minorities to use the Voting Rights Act in ideologically divided rulings in 2013 and 2021.
The other four conservative justices dissented. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the decision forces “Alabama to intentionally redraw its longstanding congressional districts so that black voters can control a number of seats roughly proportional to the black share of the State’s population. Section 2 demands no such thing, and, if it did, the Constitution would not permit it.”
The Biden administration sided with the Black voters in Alabama. Attorney General Merrick Garland applauded the ruling: “Today’s decision rejects efforts to further erode fundamental voting rights protections, and preserves the principle that in the United States, all eligible voters must be able to exercise their constitutional right to vote free from discrimination based on their race.”
Evan Milligan, a Black voter and the lead plaintiff in the case, said the ruling was a victory for democracy and people of color. “We are grateful that the Supreme Court upheld what we knew to be true: that everyone deserves to have their vote matter and their voice heard. Today is a win for democracy and freedom not just in Alabama but across the United States,” Milligan said.
Alabama Republican Party Chairman John Wahl said in a statement that state lawmakers would comply with the ruling. “Regardless of our disagreement with the Court’s decision, we are confident the Alabama Legislature will redraw district lines that ensure the people of Alabama are represented by members who share their beliefs while following the requirements of applicable law,” Wahl said.
On the other hand, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said he expects to continue defending the challenged map in Federal court, including at a full trial. “Although the majority’s decision is disappointing, this case is not over,”
Deuel Ross, a civil rights lawyer who argued the case at the Supreme Court, said the justices have validated the lower court’s view in this case. A full trial “doesn’t seem a good use of Alabama’s time, resources or the money of the people to continue to litigate their case.”
The case stems from challenges to Alabama’s seven-district congressional map, which included one district in which Black voters form a large enough majority that they have the power to elect their preferred candidate. The challengers said that one district is not enough, pointing out that overall, Alabama’s population is more than 25% Black. Partisan politics also underlies the Alabama case. Republicans who dominate elective office in Alabama have been resistant to creating a second district with a Democratic-leaning Black majority, or close to one, that could send another Democrat to Congress.
Lynda Kirkpatrick
Marion County Democratic Party Chair
State Democratic Executive Committee
Alabama Democratic Party