The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a surprising ruling in favor of Black voters in an Alabama congressional redistricting case, ordering the creation of a second district with a large Black population, the Associated Press reported.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined with the court’s liberals in affirming a lower-court ruling that found a likely violation of the Voting Rights Act in an Alabama congressional map with one majority Black seat out of seven congressional districts in a state where more than one in four residents is Black, AP reported.
The case had been closely watched for its potential to weaken the landmark voting rights law.
The justices heard oral arguments in the case in October and issued the opinion Thursday morning.
A three-judge federal panel in January 2022 ordered Alabama to redraw the congressional map to add a second district that was majority or near-majority Black. The judges, including two appointees of President Trump, ruled after a seven-day hearing that the plan most likely violated the Voting Rights Act. “Black voters have less opportunity than other Alabamians to elect candidates of their choice to Congress,” they wrote.
In February 2022, the Supreme Court put that decision on hold at Alabama’s request to allow the map to be used in the 2022 elections. However, the justices did not rule on the merits of the Voting Rights claims, and that decision came Thursday morning.
“The Court affirms the District Court’s determination that plaintiffs demonstrated a reasonable likelihood of success on their claim that HB1 (the redistricting bill) violates (Section 2 of the Voting Right Act),” the opinion says. “The District Court faithfully applied this Court’s precedents in concluding that HB1 likely violates (Section 2).
The justices affirmed the decision of both the three-judge court and a separate ruling in a case in the Northern District of Alabama.
Individual voters and organizations filed lawsuits in 2021, challenging the district map approved by the Alabama Legislature after the 2020 census. Plaintiff Evan Milligan issued a statement applauding the decision.
“We are grateful that the Supreme Court upheld what we knew to be true: that everyone deserves to have their vote matter and their voice heard,” Milligan said. “Today is a win for democracy and freedom not just in Alabama but across the United States. This ruling proves that politicians cannot weaken our community representation by distorting congressional lines, particularly in Alabama and Louisiana. The voters will be heard, and this ruling will help secure our futures.”
Three lawsuits were filed challenging the map. Courts consolidated two, the Milligan case and one in which Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, is a plaintiff.
The plaintiffs alleged that the map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits election laws and procedures that are racially discriminatory. A key contention was that Black residents make up 27% of Alabama’s population, but only one of the seven Congressional districts, or 14%, had a majority Black population.
Milligan, executive director of the organization Alabama Forward, had told AL.com in May that the decision in the current case, called Allen (for Secretary of State Wes Allen) v. Milligan, will help determine the viability of the Voting Rights Act in stopping racial gerrymandering of districts.
Read more: U.S. Supreme Court could decide soon whether Alabama’s congressional map violates Voting Rights Act
The decision comes 10 years after the Supreme Court issued an important ruling on the Voting Rights Act in another Alabama case, Shelby County v. Holder, which ended the requirement for Alabama and other states with a history of racial discrimination on voting to seek preclearance from the Justice Department on election law changes.
Lawyers representing state officials and defending the current map have argued that it is similar to those adopted after the census in 2000 and the census in 2010, which were both precleared by the Justice Department.
The state’s lawyers said the Legislature drew the current map with race-neutral criteria, making changes to adjust to the population shifts needed after the 2020 census.
They argued that the three-judge panel that ruled in favor of the plaintiffs made a legal error in their interpretation of the Voting Rights Act, saying that to draw a second majority Black district would require “race-based sorting,” or putting race ahead of all other considerations.
Chief Justice Roberts, who wrote the court’s main opinion, rejected the state’s arguments. Roberts agreed with the three-judge panel that the plaintiffs met the legal standards to show that the map violated the Voting Rights Act in how it diminished the influence of Black voters. Roberts wrote that three-judge court correctly determined after a seven-day hearing that Black voters constituted a population that is large enough and geographically compact enough to constitute a reasonably configured second majority district. The chief justice said the plaintiffs met other standards to show a Voting Rights violation.
Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen, a Republican and the state’s top election official, issued a statement, saying, “I am disappointed in today’s Supreme Court opinion but it remains the commitment of the Secretary of State’s Office to comply with all applicable election laws.” Lawyers representing the secretary of state and other state officials have defended the state’s congressional map.
Legal Defense Fund attorney Deuel Ross, who represents the plaintiffs and argued the case before the Supreme court in October, issued a statement Thursday morning.
“This decision is a crucial win against the continued onslaught of attacks on voting rights,” Ross said. “Alabama attempted to rewrite federal law by saying race could not be considered in the redistricting process even when necessary to remedy racial discrimination. But because of the state’s sordid and well-documented pattern of persisting racial discrimination, race must be considered to ensure communities of color are not boxed out of the electoral process. While the Voting Rights Act and other key protections against discriminatory voting laws have been weakened in recent years and states continue to pass provisions to disenfranchise Black voters, today’s decision is a recognition of Section 2′s purpose to prevent voting discrimination and the very basic right to a fair shot.”
Besides Roberts and Kavanaugh, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson concurred with the decision. Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Samuel Alito dissented.