Supreme Court Allows Alabama to Keep Congressional Map That Critics Say Dilutes Black Voting Power

The Supreme Court issued an unsigned ruling allowing Alabama to use a congressional redistricting map that critics say dilutes the voting power of Black residents, who make up roughly a quarter of the state's population. The decision comes after years of litigation in which Alabama defied federal court orders, including a 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Allen v. Milligan that required the state to draw a second majority- or plurality-Black congressional district. The majority held that the lower court had not properly followed the Court's prior guidance when it ordered the creation of a new district. Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Brown Jackson dissented, with Sotomayor writing that the ruling rewarded Alabama's 'cynical gambit' of deliberate noncompliance and constituted 'a blow to the rule of law.' The ruling follows the Court's April decision in Louisiana v. Callais, in which Justice Alito wrote that the intertwining of race and politics limits the circumstances under which the Fifteenth Amendment's anti-discrimination provisions apply to redistricting. Legal analysts and voting rights advocates warn the combined effect of these rulings may significantly weaken Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting practices that discriminate on the basis of race.