The U.S. Supreme Court, pictured April 9, 2026. The court on Monday vacated a 2023 order preventing Alabama from using a map it had ruled racially discriminatory, sending the case back to lower courts. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
The U.S. Supreme Court Monday overturned a 2023 ruling blocking use of a congressional map the courts ruled as racially discriminatory, which could open the way for Alabama to use new district lines this year.
The order from the nation’s highest court in the case, known collectively as Allen v. Milligan, came about a week before the state’s May 19th primaries and about a week and a half after the court significantly weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prevents racial discrimination in voting laws, in a case known as Louisiana v. Callais.
The ruling said plaintiffs challenging maps under Section 2 must make a showing of intentional discrimination to prevail.
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As is common practice, the majority did not provide an opinion with Monday’s order.
The state currently uses a congressional map drawn by a special master appointed by a federal court in 2023, after the courts ruled a congressional map approved by the Alabama Legislature in 2021 discriminated against Black voters in the state by not giving them a full chance to select their preferred leaders. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ruling in 2023, after delaying its implementation for over a year, past the 2022 midterms.
A new map drawn by the Legislature in 2023 was also considered a violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
That section was considerably weakened by the U.S. Supreme Court in April in Louisiana v. Callais, which said plaintiffs challenging congressional maps had to prove intentional discrimination, a far higher bar than the previous standard of showing discriminatory effects.
Deuel Ross with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, which represented the plaintiffs in the case, declined comment on Monday afternoon. Messages seeking comment from Gov. Kay Ivey and Marshall were left Monday evening.
Senate President Pro Tem Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman, said in a statement Monday that the court ruling “has cleared the path for Alabama to hold free, open, and fair elections using the constitutional maps drawn by the Legislature rather than the unconstitutional maps forced upon the state by activist federal judges.”
“The Supreme Court’s action removes the thumb from the scale in legislative and congressional elections and allows Republicans to once again have a fair chance to compete,” the statement said.
Republicans control all statewide elected offices; both of the state’s U.S. Senate seats; seven of its nine U.S. House seats; 76 of its 105 state House seats and 27 of its 35 Senate seats.
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented in the order, joined by justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, saying there is no reason to reconsider Alabama’s case.
“In addition to holding that Alabama’s 2023 Redistricting Plan violates [Section] 2, the district court held, in one of the three cases before this Court, that Alabama violated the Fourteenth Amendment by intentionally diluting the votes of Black voters in Alabama,” Sotomayor wrote. “That constitutional finding of intentional discrimination is independent of, and unaffected by, any of the legal issues discussed in Callais.”
The court Tuesday sent the case back to the three-judge panel with instructions to reconsider its ruling in light of the Callais ruling. Using the 2023 map would likely throw the re-election of U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures, D-Mobile, from the 2nd Congressional District into doubt.
Sotomayor noted that the court in Callais said its ruling in Allen v. Milligan — upholding a finding of racial discrimination in congressional maps — remained “good law.”
“This Court’s finding of racially discriminatory vote dilution is an inextricable, permanent feature of this case, and Alabama’s willful decision to respond by entrenching rather than remedying that dilution is, as the District Court correctly recognized, evidence of discriminatory intent,” Sotomayor wrote.
The Alabama Legislature last week approved two bills allowing new primaries to be held in districts that would be affected by the court overturning its prior orders. Opponents have said those laws could be unconstitutional under a 2022 amendment that requires election law changes to be made no later than six months before an election. The date this year was May 3; the special session began on May 4. Republicans said last week the amendment applies to general elections and not primaries.
This is a breaking news story. Updated at 5:58 p.m. with additional background and at 6:11 p.m. with comment from Senate President Pro Tem Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman.
Allen v Milligan order May 12 2026From Alabama Reflector Post Url: Visit
Author: Ralph Chapoco, Anna Barrett