Supreme Court Clears Alabama GOP Map for 2024 Election

The Supreme Court cleared Alabama on Tuesday to implement a Republican-drawn congressional map for the upcoming midterm elections, overturning a lower court ruling that the plan intentionally discriminated against Black voters. The decision came as an unsigned order on the court's emergency docket, with the three liberal justices dissenting.

This ruling allows Alabama to use a map from 2023 that features only one district with a majority-Black population out of the state's seven congressional seats. In the 2024 elections, the state used a different, court-drawn map that created a second district where Black voters had a near-majority, resulting in the election of two Black Democratic representatives.

The lower court, a three-judge federal panel, had twice blocked the state's 2023 map. Most recently, just days ago, the panel ruled unanimously that the plan was “tainted by intentional race-based discrimination.” That court had ordered Alabama to continue using the court-imposed map for the 2026 elections. The Supreme Court's action halts that injunction.

The legal fight stretches back to redistricting after the 2020 Census. Alabama's initial map was challenged in court, with...