Supreme Court lets Alabama use House map that favors GOP in midterms

Washington — The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for Alabama to use a congressional map that is more favorable to Republicans in this year's midterm elections, despite a lower court finding that the plan intentionally discriminated against Black voters. 

In a divided 6-3 decision, the high court agreed to freeze the district court decision that prevented the state from using the map drawn by Republicans in 2023, which included one majority-Black congressional district out of Alabama's seven. The lower court had found that Alabama intentionally discriminated against Black voters when it crafted those House district lines three years ago.

The lower court judges instead ordered the state to keep using a court-selected congressional map, which was in place for the 2024 elections, that includes two districts where Black voters have the opportunity to elect their preferred candidates. Under that map, the state's seven-member congressional delegation is divided between five Republicans and two Democrats.

Now, under the 2023 plan that Alabama can swap in as a result of the Supreme Court's order, which reconfigures the district currently represented by Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures, Republicans are likely to be favored 6-1. A special primary for four House seats altered by the 2023 map is set for Aug. 11. Primaries for the other three districts were held May 19.

In Tuesday's unsigned opinion, the Supreme Court wrote that the lower court "interposed itself into Alabama's ongoing efforts to conduct its imminent 2026 congressional elections under maps that its elected representatives selected. Its view that conducting the elections under court-imposed maps would be more convenient for the State was not a valid justification for that intervention."

The high court said that Alabama was likely to prevail on its argument that the 2023 map is lawful.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor penned a dissent that was joined by the court's two other liberal justices, arguing that setting aside the current congressional map — and reassigning many voters to new congressional districts — could lead to a "chaotic election, held under a never-before-used congressional map that intentionally discriminates against Black Alabamians."

She said the court's conservative majority "disregards both democratic values and the rule of law."

Alabama GOP officials turned to the Supreme Court for emergency relief last week, after the district court's decision finding the 2023 map unlawful because it purposefully discriminates based on race. They said that when drawing the district lines, mapmakers aimed to help Republicans and keep the Gulf Coast region together in one congressional district.

The Trump administration backed Alabama in its effort to put the congressional districts drawn in 2023 in place for the midterm elections, arguing that federal courts shouldn't interfere with elections or usurp states' role in drawing congressional districts.

But a group of voters and voting rights groups pushed back on Alabama's assertion that it was seeking to achieve partisan goals when it drew the congressional map three years ago. In a filing with the Supreme Court, they said the legislature did not cite partisan goals at the time, and noted that the district court found "zero evidence" that mapmakers were motivated by party or incumbent protection.

"Granting Alabama's request would insert the Court into an ongoing election in a manner that upsets settled expectations, causes voter confusion, and creates chaos and unworkable deadlines for even the most diligent election officials," the voters, represented by the NAACP and the ACLU, said.

Kristen Clarke, general counsel of the NAACP, criticized the Supreme Court's order, but encouraged Black voters to cast ballots in upcoming elections to express their dissent.

"The Supreme Court continues to unleash chaos in our democratic process, and with this latest action, gives Alabama approval to use a congressional map that had previously been found to be intentionally discriminatory," she said in a statement. "This is a Court that is stripping Black voters of power and voice at a speed that would put Jim Crow jurists to shame."

The legal battle involving Alabama's voting boundaries posed an early test of the Supreme Court's blockbuster decision in late April that weakened a key provision of the Voting Rights Act and invalidated a majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana. On the heels of that ruling, several states in the South, like Alabama, have moved to reconfigure House districts that have favored Democrats. 

The high court's decision came amid a separate push by President Trump for GOP-led states to redraw their congressional maps to bolster Republicans' chances of holding onto their House majority in November, which set off a mid-decade redistricting battle.

Alabama has been involved in a protracted legal fight over its congressional boundaries that dates back to the redrawing of its House districts after the 2020 Census. After the Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that a congressional map adopted in 2021 — which included one majority-Black district — likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the state's GOP-led legislature crafted a new map in the summer of 2023 that maintained a single majority-Black district.

But a district court blocked the state from using that map and found that it unlawfully diluted the votes of Black Alabamians. It ordered a special master to come up with a new plan, which was selected by the district court in October 2023 and used in the 2024 elections. 

After the Supreme Court's decision in the Louisiana voting rights case, Alabama asked the high court to lift the district court's injunction and allow it to revive the 2023 map that had been blocked. The Supreme Court agreed to set aside the lower court's decision and sent the case back for more proceedings. 

When the three-judge district court panel took another look at the 2023 map, it maintained its earlier finding that the plan is racially discriminatory.

"Ultimately, we cannot see our way clear to requiring Alabamians to cast their votes in the 2026 elections under a districting plan tainted by intentional race-based discrimination," Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus and District Judges Anna Manasco and Terry Moorer found.

Alabama Republican officials asked the Supreme Court to step in, arguing that the state's 2023 map was "lawful then, and it is lawful now."