The Supreme Court handed Alabama officials a win Tuesday evening by allowing the state to use a new congressional map that could help the GOP flip a Democratic seat in the 2026 elections.
The high court ruled 6-3 in favor of lifting an injunction placed by a lower court last week that had found the congressional map was an unlawful racial gerrymander, even after the Supreme Court ordered the lower court to reconsider the case in light of its ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which significantly raised the legal bar for proving claims of intentional racial discrimination when drawing congressional maps. In the Tuesday per curiam order, the six-justice majority said the lower court failed to follow the Supreme Court’s Callais ruling.
The ruling found that the lower court panel did “not heed the presumption of legislative good faith” state lawmakers are entitled to when drawing congressional districts, along with failing “to follow our instruction in Callais that the mere fact that voters of different races vote for different parties is not relevant to proving racially polarized voting patterns.”
The majority also took aim at the lower court for changing the congressional map weeks before Alabama’s rescheduled House primaries, saying they have “repeatedly cautioned that lower federal courts should not alter the election rules on the eve of an election.”
“Here, the District 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 ruling said.
“While federal courts should not impose changes close to an election, States are free to decide for themselves whether last-minute changes to an election are in their best interests,” the unsigned ruling continued.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, claiming that “just as Alabama doubled down on racial discrimination, the Court today doubles down on chaos,” by allowing the quick redraw of the congressional map to take effect.
“Before the Court are two paths. Down one lies an orderly election, held under a tried-and-tested congressional map that protects Black Alabamians’ right to vote and with which all voters, elections officials, and candidates alike are familiar,” Sotomayor wrote for the dissent. “Down the other lies a chaotic election, held under a never-before-used congressional map that intentionally discriminates against Black Alabamians, that Alabama adopted in unashamed defiance of a prior court order directly affirmed by this Court, and that will require officials to change the voter registrations of hundreds of thousands of voters in just days at best, a task that Alabama previously represented would take months.”
“The majority chooses the second path and disregards both democratic values and the rule of law. I respectfully dissent,” she added.
The congressional map the Supreme Court reinstated for Alabama wipes away one of the two black-majority districts, which had been a safely Democratic seat, into a seat Republicans are likely to flip in November, almost certainly changing the state’s congressional delegation from five Republicans and two Democrats to six Republicans and one Democrat.
ALABAMA ASKS SUPREME COURT TO UNBLOCK GOP-FRIENDLY CONGRESSIONAL MAP
Alabama delayed primaries for House seats affected by the state’s implementation of the GOP-favorable map to Aug. 11 after the Supreme Court previously cleared the way for the state to use the map. The Supreme Court’s Tuesday ruling on Alabama’s trio of emergency petitions means the delay to the primaries for the state’s 1st, 2nd, 6th, and 7th congressional districts will not have been for nothing.
Since the Callais ruling in April, several Republican-led states have redrawn congressional maps in hopes of gaining House seats after the requirements for majority-minority districts were significantly changed. Republicans redrew maps in Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, and Tennessee, while legislatures in Georgia, South Carolina, and Mississippi appear likely to make changes to their maps after this year’s elections.