The Supreme Court on Tuesday night allowed Alabama to use a congressional map favoring Republicans in this year’s elections, blocking a lower court ruling that the map intentionally discriminates against Black voters. The justices granted the state’s emergency appeal to use a map it adopted in 2023 that has a majority-Black population in just one of its seven congressional districts. The three liberal justices dissented. The ruling takes effect immediately, meaning Alabama will use its 2023 map for its August 11 special primary elections covering the affected congressional districts.
Unlike many shadow docket orders, the majority provided some explanation in an unsigned per curiam opinion. The majority’s core holding was that the lower district court “did not heed the presumption of legislative good faith,” the same standard the majority had invoked in Callais, when it inferred that Alabama intended to racially discriminate solely because the state declined to draw a second majority-Black district.
The majority cited Callais directly, using its April 29 precedent as the primary vehicle for overriding the district court’s intentional discrimination finding. “Under Callais, the District Court was required to deny relief unless the plaintiff’s alternative map performed “just as well” with respect to all of the State’s constitutionally permissible districting criteria.” The majority reasoned that a state’s insistence on pursuing partisan goals in the face of an earlier Section 2 ruling does not by itself establish racially discriminatory intent, but some observers say this effectively creates a near-irrebuttable presumption of legislative good faith in redistricting cases.
Justice Sotomayor’s dissent – joined by Kagan and Jackson – argued that the court was “being presented with a choice: it can use its equitable authority to fix the mess it has created, or it can use that same authority to deepen it further,” calling the majority’s action a reward for Alabama’s deliberate defiance of court orders. Read more coverage at NPR.org, Politico, Fox News, and Democracy Docket.
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