Supreme Court reinstates Republican-favored Alabama congressional districts

Law Supreme Court reinstates Republican-favored Alabama congressional districts June 2, 20269:45 PM ET By  Grady Martin ,  Nina Totenberg The U.S. Supreme Court Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for Alabama to use a congressional district map favored by Republicans. The court overturned a three-judge district court panel that found that the map is "tainted by intentional race-based discrimination." The ruling means that Alabama's 2026 midterm elections will feature six Republican-leaning districts and one Democratic-leaning one, as opposed to a map with only five safe Republican seats. Democrat Shomari Figures, who represents Alabama's Second District, will likely lose his seat as a result of the high court's ruling. The story of Alabama's congressional map is long and tortured. It began in 2021, when the state implemented a new map to account for population changes in the census. The map featured only one majority-black district out of seven, even though the state is more than one-quarter Black. Sponsor Message Voters immediately sued, claiming the map illegally diluted minority votes in violation of the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution. Lower court judges agreed, ruling that the state must draw a map with two districts where Black voters have a realistic chance of electing their candidate of choice. The Supreme Court more than once has ordered Alabama to draw a compliant map. But the state has refused and instead continued to litigate the case. On Tuesday, that tactic paid off. What changed? In April, the Supreme Court's conservative supermajority all but gutted what remains of the Voting Rights Act, ruling that states cannot purposefully draw districts that are majority-minority. Alabama then asked the high court to reinstate their old map, under the theory that this new ruling meant that it was permissible to use a map with only one majority-Black dis...