By Bird Rudd 
By: Bird Rudd
Photo Credit: Kim Chandler/Associated Press
On September 26th, 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled against Alabama’s second attempt to implement their new congressional district map. Congressional districts are local regions based on population within a state, from which members are elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Congressional seats, and therefore the number of districts, are apportioned to states based on their population. These districts are supposed to have populations that are as equal as possible to all other congressional districts in a state. The Court initially disapproved of Alabama’s district map in a ruling on June 8th, 2023. After this decision, Alabama endeavored to readjust their map in accordance with the Court’s majority opinion. September’s decision rejected Alabama’s most recent changes, ruling that the readjusted map still violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and that a court-appointed official will be assigned to help Alabama redraw their district map for a third time. The Court’s primary concern is that the map dilutes the voice of Black voters in Alabama by only creating one majority-Black district.
The concern over Alabama’s congressional district map began with the case of Allen v. Milligan in October of 2022. The issue of the case asked whether the state’s districting plan, adopted by Alabama’s legislature and signed into law by Governor Kay Ivey, violated the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965. The VRA was signed into law by President Lydon Johnson and it outlawed racially discriminatory voting practices, including a federal ban on any arbitrary voting qualification tests. The VRA was an effort to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and this act helped end several practices in the south that aimed to disenfranchise Black voters and suppress their right to vote.
In the 5-4 decision of Allen v. Milligan, the Court affirmed two federal district court rulings that prevented Alabama from holding elections under their current congressional district map due to its violation of Section 2 in the Voting Rights Act. Section 2 of the VRA prohibits voting laws and practices that may lead to an abridgment of the right to vote based on race. According to the majority ruling authored by Chief Justice Roberts, Alabama’s map violated this section because it only created one majority district for the Black residents in Alabama, who comprise about 27% of the state’s total population. Alabama holds 7 districts which means that only one majority district for the Black population would treat them as about 14% of Alabama’s population. Two majority districts would recognize them as about 28% of the population, which is closer to the demographic makeup of the state. Consequently, the Court ordered Alabama to revise their map by creating a second majority-Black district in order to provide Black voters with congressional representation that is proportional to their actual percentage of the population.
In response to this decision, the Alabama Legislature met in July of 2023 to create a new congressional map. The new map did not add a second district with a majority of Black voters, as previously ordered by the Court. In a legislative hearing regarding the map, Alabama lawmakers determined the map would not create a new majority Black district and defended their new districting plan by saying that compliance with the Court’s order to create a second majority-Black district would illegally prioritize race in the districting process. A three-judge panel in the case of Singleton v. Allen struck down the new map. In response, Alabama made an emergency request to the Supreme Court asking that they block the lower court’s order to redraw the congressional map again; this request became the second Supreme Court case in less than a year to resolve Alabama’s districting issue, with the state arguing for a limit on the role of race in establishing voting districts.
September’s ruling by the Supreme Court demonstrated their insistence that Alabama not continue to use a congressional map that institutes a singular district with a majority of Black voters. The Court’s brief for the emergency case gave no reasons for their decision; this often occurs with emergency applications. The Court further ordered that a special master and court-appointed cartographer will now be responsible for redrawing the map in place of the Alabama Legislature.
U.S. Representative Terri Sewell from Alabama’s 7th congressional district released a statement in favor of the ruling by stating that the “decision is yet another victory for Black voters in Alabama and for the promise of fair representation.” She went on to state the following: “By appointing a special master to fairly redraw Alabama’s congressional map, the court has rejected the state legislature’s latest attempt to dilute the voices and voting power of African Americans all across our state…The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is indeed alive and enforceable!”
The Alabama GOP issued a response to the Court’s decision against the original congressional map crafted by the Alabama Legislature. They stated, “We believe Alabama’s congressional districts should represent the communities of our state, and not be based on the liberal Democrat agenda or the color of people’s skin.” They expressed their belief that “of the three maps, the Court chose the map that is the most Democratic,” meaning they felt this map aligned most with the objectives of the Democrat party. Alabama’s Attorney General Steve Marshall issued a lengthy statement acknowledging that the court-drawn map will likely be used for the 2024 election cycle. He went on to state that he would continue to defend the 2023 map and argued that the court-drawn map would reduce Alabamians “to skin color alone.”
The American Bar Association (ABA), which is the largest voluntary association of lawyers and is a nationally recognized voice of the legal profession, offered their support for the decision. The ABA declared they “staunchly applaud [the] Supreme Court decision to reject Alabama’s effort to conduct the 2024 elections under a contentious congressional map that dilutes the voting power of its Black citizens.” They went on to explain that the “ruling not only signifies a judicial commitment to uphold civil rights and voting protections but reaffirms the lower court’s previous opinion that the redistricting likely constitutes a violation of the Voting Rights Act by the Alabama legislature.” Regardless of partisan opinion, the impact of this new congressional map will likely be evident in the quickly approaching 2024 election cycle, in addition to having a long-term influence on Black voting representation in Alabama.