For the 2022 midterm elections, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Alabama to use congressional districts that violated the law and diluted the voting power of Black citizens.

A 5-4 vote by the Supreme Court in February 2022 let Alabama use these illegal districts during the election while the court heard the state’s appeal on the case known as Allen v. Milligan. In that case, voters had sued Alabama, arguing that its new congressional district map violated the Voting Rights Act by unfairly reducing Black voting power. Only one of seven congressional districts on Alabama’s new map had a majority Black population, despite Black residents making up a quarter of the state’s population.

The lower federal courts had agreed with the voters who sued and declared Alabama’s map illegal, ordering the state to draw a new one.

Then the Supreme Court intervened.

By June 2023, the Supreme Court ultimately ruled against Alabama. It upheld the requirements of the Voting Rights Act under these circumstances and allowed the lower court case to move forward.

But by then the votes had been cast in the 2022 elections, and the winners were seated in the U.S. House of Representatives. In November 2022, more than 1 million Americans in Alabama – as well as Louisiana and Georgia – voted in congressional districts that violated the law. Those congressional districts were used to choose political representation for Alabama citizens for the next two years.

The Supreme Court’s decision to allow presumptively illegal redistricting maps during the election not only had major effects for representation, but it also ran counter to six decades of federal court precedent.

Historically, the federal courts prioritized voting rights and legal congressional districts for upcoming elections above all other concerns, allowing lower federal courts to order or – in extreme circumstances – to draw new districts that complied with the law.

In this case, the Supreme Court instead prioritized deference to state election powers and judicial restraint over the rights and representation of voters in Alabama and the federal judiciary’s role in guaranteeing them.

Congressional redistricting and reapportionment typically takes place once a decade. Following the U.S. census, each state is required to redraw its congressional districts to account for changes in population. This is usually completed by state legislatures or redistricting commissions. After the 2020 census, Alabama’s state legislature drew its districts.

...continued