Justices Clear Path for Alabama GOP to Use New Voter Map (2)

The US Supreme Court lifted an order that blocked Alabama from using a congressional map deemed to be an illegal racial gerrymander, positioning Republicans to potentially deploy it in special elections.

In an order on Monday, the justices agreed to lift the lower court decision following their April 29 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais that further weakened the Voting Rights Act.

The conservative-led court’s brief order, which drew dissents from the three liberal justices, remanded the matter to the US District Court for the Northern District of Alabama for further consideration in light of Callais.

The request from Alabama Republicans came as several GOP-led states in the South sprint ahead of congressional midterms to implement new maps following Callais, which significantly limited the ability to use the Voting Rights Act to carve predominantly minority districts.

Alabama’s primary elections are scheduled for May 19, but the state’s Republican governor signed legislation that would allow her to call special elections in the event of a favorable court ruling.

Appeals, Dissents

Callais came three years after the Supreme Court tossed a map created by Alabama’s Republican-led legislature as illegally discriminatory. Later that year, the justices left in force a lower court ruling that ordered Alabama to hold elections with a second congressional district with at least a near-majority of Black voters.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall filed briefs with the court on May 8 claiming Callais overrides that order. It was filed the same day Gov. Kay Ivey signed bills authorizing her to call special elections for certain state and congressional districts whose parameters changed after earlier interventions by federal courts.

In a post on X, Marshall called Monday’s decision a “major victory” that positions state lawmakers to draw a map that favors the GOP. “For too long, unelected federal judges have had more say over Alabama’s elections than Alabama’s voters,” Marshall said. “That ended today.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented from Monday’s decision, which she said would create “chaos” for Alabama voters.

“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.

Sotomayor added the district court “remains free on remand to decide for itself whether Callais has any bearing” on its prior decision. Yet it wasn’t clear how quickly that court would act in response to the justices’ order that lets Alabama use a map with one majority-Black district.

New Standard

In ruling Louisiana’s formation of a second-majority Black district was unconstitutional, the conservative majority set a higher standard for lawsuits alleging maps dilute the ability of minority voters to elect their candidates of choice.

Alabama’s case mirrors that of Louisiana, Marshall argued in his brief to the Supreme Court. “And they should end the same way,” he said. “With this year’s elections run with districts based on lawful policy goals: not race.”

Marshall also invoked the majority’s ruling that plaintiffs must “disentangle race from politics” as he argued that the state’s Republican-drawn maps will likely be deemed legal.

Alabama, whose population is about 27% Black, was required to use a court-ordered map in the 2024 congressional election, which resulted in five Republicans and two Democrats winning races for the state’s seven US House seats. The two Democrats are Reps. Terri Sewell and Shomari Figures, who are both Black.

The same map is being used for primaries taking place now, a lower court panel said May 8 as it denied the state’s request to pause its injunction.

Sewell said in a statement that the Supreme Court’s decision was a “stunning departure from legal precedent and another direct attack on Black voters in Alabama.”


The case is: Allen v. Caster, U.S., No. 25-243, 5/11/26.