Supreme Court clears path for Alabama congressional maps

The top U.S. court on Monday removed barriers to Alabama changing congressional maps for this year’s midterm elections. In a divided decision, the high court lifted lower rulings that had blocked the state from using 2023 maps, which contained one majority-black district. A lower court previously instructed Alabama to use court-drawn maps with two majority-black districts.

In an unsigned, one-paragraph order, the Supreme Court sent Alabama’s dispute over the map back to the lower court for another look. SCOTUS said the case should be reevaluated in light of its ruling last month on Louisiana’s congressional map. In the Louisiana case, the high court weakened the interpretation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, while finding that Louisiana’s maps were drawn for unfair political advantage. Following that ruling, Republicans in several other Southern states scrambled to redraw their own maps.

How have leaders responded to the ruling?

• Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, lauded the high court’s ruling Monday. He said the Supreme Court gave the power to draw these maps back to the people’s elected representatives.

• Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures characterized the high court’s ruling as incredibly unfortunate. He said it set the stage for the state to go back to 1950s and ’60s black political representation.

Who dissented from the majority? The ruling from the Supreme Court appeared to be 6 to 3, though the court did not list an official vote count. However, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined in the dissent. Sotomayor wrote that the majority’s decision will cause confusion as Alabamians vote in primaries next week. 

Dig deeper: Listen to Harrison Watters’ report for The World and Everything in It on the race to redraw congressional districts across multiple states.