{"id":84,"date":"2026-05-27T17:40:53","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T17:40:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=84"},"modified":"2026-05-27T17:40:53","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T17:40:53","slug":"alabama-urges-supreme-court-to-allow-for-use-of-congressional-map-struck-by-lower-court-as-racially-discriminatory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=84","title":{"rendered":"Alabama urges Supreme Court to allow for use of congressional map struck by lower court as racially discriminatory"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Just over two weeks after the Supreme Court cleared the way for Alabama to use a congressional map that a lower court had blocked as racially discriminatory, Alabama returned to the court. In a filing on Wednesday morning, the state asked the justices to pause a new ruling by a panel of federal judges that once again barred the state from using the map on the ground that the map \u201cintentionally discriminated based on race in violation of the Constitution\u201d and therefore could not stand even after the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in Louisiana v. Callais<\/em>. That decision, issued late last month, made it more difficult for plaintiffs to prevail on a claim that a map violates a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.<\/p>\n

Read more New York Times v. Sullivan, service, and sentence credits<\/a><\/p>\n

Unless the lower court\u2019s decision is put on hold, Alabama Solicitor General A. Barrett Bowdre told the justices, both \u201cAlabama and the public face irreparable harm \u2026 because they will be unable to use the State\u2019s \u2018duly enacted plans\u2019 for the 2026 election. Worse still, voters will be forced to vote under a court-drawn racially gerrymandered map that does not meet Alabama\u2019s legitimate districting goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s filing was the latest chapter in a dispute that began in 2021, when the state enacted a new congressional map. A group of Black voters and civil rights organizations went to federal court to challenge the map. They contended that the new map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which bars racial discrimination in voting, because it spread Black voters in southern Alabama across three congressional districts, leaving them a minority in each.<\/p>\n

The lower court agreed that the 2021 map likely violated Section 2, and it prohibited the state from using the map. In 2023, the Supreme Court upheld that decision, prompting Alabama to draw a new map. That map also drew a challenge in federal court, leading to a ruling that the 2023 map also likely violated Section 2. The lower court once again barred Alabama from using its map, and the Supreme Court declined to put that order on hold.<\/p>\n

A court-appointed special master eventually created a new map, which the lower court ordered the state to use in future elections. That court ruled last year after a trial that the 2023 map did indeed violate the VRA. It concluded that the map was \u201can intentional effort to dilute Black Alabamians\u2019 voting strength and evade the unambiguous requirements of court orders standing in the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alabama appealed the lower court\u2019s ruling to the Supreme Court, which on May 11 \u2013 one week before the state\u2019s primary election was originally scheduled to take place \u2013 back to the lower court for another look in light of its decision in Callais<\/em>. It did so in an unsigned, one-paragraph order, in which the justices did not provide any additional explanation for their decision. In the interim, the Alabama Legislature passed a law allowing \u201ca special primary election for affected Congressional districts\u201d if a federal court permits the state to restore the 2023 map.<\/p>\n

Justice Sonia Sotomayor from the court\u2019s order, in an opinion joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Sotomayor argued that there was \u201cno reason\u201d for the court to send the case back to the lower court because that court had also concluded that \u201cAlabama violated the Fourteenth Amendment by intentionally diluting the votes of Black voters in Alabama. That constitutional finding of intentional discrimination is independent of,\u201d she wrote, \u201cand unaffected by, any of the legal issues discussed in\u00a0Callais<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Criminal law update: some defense-friendly rulings and a big case that wasn\u2019t<\/a><\/p>\n

When the case returned to the lower court, the panel of three judges \u2013 which included one Clinton appointee and two Trump appointees \u2013 again barred the state from using the 2023 map and instead instructed Alabama to use the map created by the special master. The panel wrote that \u201cwe 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. And under the unusual circumstances of this case,\u201d the judges wrote, \u201cwe conclude that a limited order requiring the Secretary\u201d of State \u201cto continue using this Court\u2019s race-blind map will not disrupt Alabama\u2019s elections.\u201d Finally, the judges explained that they did not \u201clightly intrude in state affairs,\u201d but there was \u201cno doubt that Alabama\u2019s legislatively enacted plan \u2026 intentionally discriminated based on race in violation of the Constitution. Our re-examination in light of Callais<\/em> yields the same conclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its filing on Wednesday, Alabama urged the court to freeze the lower court\u2019s ruling and allow it to use the 2023 map in the upcoming elections. That map, Bowdre wrote, \u201caddressed this Court\u2019s concerns about the State\u2019s prioritization of core retention\u201d \u2013 the principle of trying to have districts resemble their earlier iterations as closely as possible \u2013 \u201cat the cost of splitting the Black Belt region,\u201d an area in central Alabama originally named for its rich, dark soil but now named for its large Black population, the descendants of formerly enslaved people. The 2023 map, Bowdre said, divided the Black Belt \u201cas little as possible, while also keeping together the Gulf Coast as the State had done for 50 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCallais<\/em>,\u201d Bowdre continued, \u201cvindicates Alabama\u2019s position on the lawfulness of the 2023 Plan, yet the district court decided in one week that Callais<\/em> changed nothing.\u201d The district court, Bowdre stressed, did not require the challengers to offer alternative maps that would achieve Alabama\u2019s goals while still maintaining two majority-Black districts, as the Supreme Court suggested it should have, and \u201c[i]t did not matter to the district court that drawing an additional race-based district came at the cost of sacrificing communities of interest and pairing incumbents.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWorse,\u201d Bowdre concluded, the district court\u2019s conclusion that the state intentionally violated the Constitution rests on the idea \u201cthat Alabama intentionally discriminated by refusing to intentionally discriminate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alabama asked the Supreme Court to put the lower court\u2019s ruling on hold temporarily while it considers the state\u2019s request \u2013 an order known as an administrative stay \u2013 and it asked the justices to act by 10 a.m. on Monday, June 1. In the alternative, it suggested, the court could go ahead and either reverse the lower court\u2019s ruling now or take up the dispute and hear oral argument in the fall.<\/p>\n

Read more The Roberts court\u2019s record on the First Amendment<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just over two weeks after the Supreme Court cleared the way for Alabama to use a congressional map that a lower court had blocked as racially discriminatory, Alabama returned to the court. In a filing on Wednesday morning, the state asked the justices to pause a new ruling by a panel of federal judges that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-court-news"],"yoast_head":"\nAlabama urges Supreme Court to allow for use of congressional map struck by lower court as racially discriminatory - American Service Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=84\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Alabama urges Supreme Court to allow for use of congressional map struck by lower court as racially discriminatory - American Service Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Just over two weeks after the Supreme Court cleared the way for Alabama to use a congressional map that a lower court had blocked as racially discriminatory, Alabama returned to the court. 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