The US Supreme Court reinstated Alabama’s new congressional map Monday, which had previously been blocked by a lower court for violating § 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA).
In November 2021, two lawsuits were filed challenging the congressional map on the grounds that the map unlawfully dilutes African-American voting strength because the map has only one majority Black district out of seven districts. Voters, and civil rights and faith groups joined together later that month to file two additional lawsuits against the new state legislature and congressional district maps.
Last month, a panel of three federal judges blocked the new congressional district map finding that it unlawfully disadvantaged Black voters. The panel found that the map violated § 2 of the VRA because “Black voters ‘have less opportunity’ than other Alabamians ‘to elect representatives of their choice to Congress.'”
On Monday, the Supreme Court reinstated the map in a 5-4 vote. In a brief order, the Court stated that the district court’s preliminary injunctions “are stayed pending further order of the Court.” In a concurrence, Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted that the stay order was “not a ruling on the merits, but instead simply stays the District Court’s injunction pending a ruling on the merits.” He stated that the Purcell principle required the court to stay the injunction with respect to 2022 elections and if the lower court’s judgment was affirmed after appellate review, the injunction would take effect for congressional elections after 2022.
Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer dissented.
Chief Justice Roberts believed that the district court properly followed the governing standard under Thornburg v. Gingles for vote dilution claims, which requires “the minority group…to demonstrate that it is sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district.” Roberts noted that the Gingles decision “engendered considerable disagreement and uncertainty regarding the nature and contours of a vote dilution claim.” Therefore, he would have granted certiorari for the case but would not have granted a stay.
Justice Kagan, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Breyer stated that the court went “badly wrong” for granting the stay, adding:
There may—or may not—be a basis for revising our VRA precedent in light of the modern districting technology that Alabama’s application highlights. But such a change can properly happen only after full briefing and argument—not based on the scanty review this Court gives matters on its shadow docket. The District Court here did everything right under the law existing today. Staying its decision forces Black Alabamians to suffer what under that law is clear vote dilution.
In a press release, the ACLU of Alabama expressed disappointment over the decision but also noted that the litigation would continue.
