Chief Justice John Roberts (L) Justice Brett Kavanaugh (C) and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson (R) [Alex Wong/Getty Images]
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday slapped down Alabama’s congressional redistricting plans as “likely” violative of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a ruling in favor of Black voters and against Republican lawmakers in the state.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined with Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson on the 5-4 ruling. Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Samuel Alito dissented. Overall, the lineup was complicated:
ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to Part III–B–1. SOTOMAYOR, KAGAN, and JACKSON, JJ., joined that opinion in full, and KAVANAUGH, J., joined except for Part III–B–1. KAVANAUGH, J., filed an opinion concurring in all but Part III–B–1. THOMAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which GORSUCH, J., joined, in which BARRETT, J., joined as to Parts II and III, and in which ALITO, J., joined as to Parts II– A and II–B. ALITO, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which GORSUCH, J., joined.
The core holding, on the other hand, was straightforward: “The Court affirms the District Court’s determination that plaintiffs demonstrated a reasonable likelihood of success on their claim that HB1 violates §2.”
What is HB1?
HB1 is a 2021 redistricting bill that faith groups, civil rights groups, and Black voters opposed for packing one-third of the state’s Black voters into a single congressional district while spreading the remaining Black voters across three congressional districts. Under Alabama’s revised maps, only one of the state’s seven congressional districts would likely have the chance of electing a Black representative, despite the state’s having a roughly 27 percent Black population. The practice, said the plaintiffs, violated the VRA, which prohibits election practices that would result in voter discrimination based on race.
More Law&Crime coverage: Liberal justices school Alabama on voting rights and racial discrimination in redistricting case
A three-judge panel on the Alabama federal district court (which included two judges appointed by former President Donald Trump) ruled unanimously to temporarily block the 2021 redistricting map in January 2022. In its ruling, the court cited Alabama’s long history of racial discrimination in the context of voting and said that the redistricting map likely violated Section 2 of the VRA:
(a) No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision in a manner which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color, or in contravention of the guarantees set forth in section 10303(f)(2) of this title, as provided in subsection (b).
(b) A violation of subsection (a) is established if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens protected by subsection (a) in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice. The extent to which members of a protected class have been elected to office in the State or political subdivision is one circumstance which may be considered: Provided, That nothing in this section establishes a right to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court’s razor-thin majority agreed:
[T]he District Court concluded that plaintiffs had carried their burden at the totality of circumstances stage. The Court observed that elections in Alabama were racially polarized; that “Black Alabamians enjoy virtually zero success in statewide elections”; that political campaigns in Alabama had been “characterized by overt or subtle racial appeals”; and that “Alabama’s extensive history of repugnant racial and voting-related discrimination is undeniable and well documented,” Id., at 1018–1024.We see no reason to disturb the District Court’s careful factual findings, which are subject to clear error review and have gone unchallenged by Alabama in any event. See Cooper, 581 U. S., at 309. Nor is there a basis to upset the District Court’s legal conclusions. The Court faithfully applied our precedents and correctly determined that, under existing law, HB1 violated §2.
The majority opinion noted that Randy Hinaman drew the congressional map in 2001 that informed the map drawn in 2011 — and that 2011 map was “[t]e starting point” for the 2021 map which the majority has repudiated.
“The resulting map Hinaman drew largely resembled the 2011 map, again producing only one district in which black voters constituted a majority of the voting age population,” the opinion said.
Now it’s back to the drawing board.
BREAKING: The Supreme Court just ruled that Alabama’s 2021-enacted congressional map violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 because it diluted Black political power.
Alabama must now redraw its congressional map.
— ACLU (@ACLU) June 8, 2023
Elura Nanos contributed to this report.
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