Alabama asks Supreme Court to allow pro-GOP map that diluted Black vote

WASHINGTON − Alabama asked the Supreme Court on May 27 to let it use a pro-Republican congressional map that was deemed to have intentionally discriminated against Black voters, the latest fallout from the justices’ recent decision weakening the Voting Rights Act. 

If the court grants Alabama’s emergency request, Republicans will have the advantage in the disputed congressional district as they try to retain control of the closely divided U.S. House. 

Alabama had been under a court order to use a map in which two of the seven congressional districts had majority or near-majority Black populations rather than the GOP-preferred map with only one majority-Black district.

The Supreme Court on May 11 lifted that order and directed the lower court to reconsider whether its ruling met the new higher bar for voter discrimination claims in map-drawing disputes.

That three-judge panel in Alabama stuck by the initial decision.

“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,” the judges wrote.

The panel included U.S. Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus, appointed by President Bill Clinton, and U.S. District Judges Anna M. Manasco and Terry F. Moorer, appointed by President Donald Trump.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said the panel’s decision halted ongoing election preparations and did so by defying the Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, the April decision about the Voting Rights Act.

“Callais vindicates Alabama’s position,” Marshall wrote in the state’s appeal, “yet the district court decided in one week that Callais changed nothing.”

Marshall asked the court to issue its decision by June 1.

Section Two of the Voting Rights Act tries to prevent legislative map drawers from diminishing the voting power of racial minorities by either packing them into one district or spreading them out across too many districts to have an impact.

In the Supreme Court’s April 29 decision about Louisiana’s voting map, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the law "requires evidence giving rise to a strong inference of intentional discrimination." It's not enough, he said, that a map "fails to provide a sufficient number of majority-minority districts."

In 2023, a closely divided Supreme Court backed the lower court's ruling that Alabama's Republican-drawn map likely violated the Voting Rights Act. That 5-4 ruling was authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, who was joined by fellow conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Both voted, in the Louisiana case, to limit the scope of the Voting Rights Act.