The Supreme Court on Monday erased a lower court ruling that had stood in the way of Alabama redrawing its congressional lines, giving another boost to Republicans eager to ditch seats that have long been safe Democratic districts.
The justices said their ruling takes effect immediately.
It follows on last month’s decision in a similar case out of Louisiana. In that ruling, which dealt with congressional lines in Louisiana, the court said the Voting Rights Act cannot be used to force states to draw minority-heavy districts unless there’s explicit evidence of current discrimination.
The justices said the same logic applies to Alabama, which had been forced by a lower court to have two majority-Black seats, both of which went to Democrats.
Monday’s ruling vacates that lower court ruling and sends the matter back for more proceedings.
The result could allow the state to revert to a previous map that had just one majority-Black — and Democrat-voting — district.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the decision Monday, saying her colleagues were stretching last month’s ruling too far.
She pointed out that the high court just a few years ago had blessed the idea that Alabama should have two majority-Black “opportunity districts.” And she said the court, in the Louisiana case, affirmed that the previous Alabama case remained good law.
She also said a lower court had found that Alabama’s map limiting Black voters to just a single opportunity district was too tainted by race.
And she said it was too late in the process to upend the state’s map anyway.
“The court today unceremoniously discards the district court’s meticulously documented and supported discriminatory-intent finding and careful remedial order without any sound basis for doing so and without regard for the confusion that will surely ensue,” she wrote.
She was joined by the court’s other two Democratic appointees, Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
