by Elise Spenner
In an unexpected decision Thursday morning, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Alabama’s redrawn congressional maps diluted the power of Black voters under Section II of the Voting Rights Act, upholding a district court injunction from last year. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority, joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the three liberals. Both Justice Thomas and Justice Alito wrote dissenting opinions.
Some background on Alabama’s map: In 2020, a new map was created to better reflect Alabama’s growing population in response to criticism that the prior layout was racially gerrymandered. However, the redrawing looked basically like the old 2001 map, with seven single-member districts but only one majority-Black one. Three plaintiffs sued, and their cases were brought to the Court in Allen v. Milligan.
You might remember that in the lead-up to the 2022 midterms, the Court left multiple redrawn maps in place despite litigation that questioned their legality. The Alabama map was one of them. To do so, the Court blocked the very same district court ruling that it now upholds, and the maps were used for the congressional election.
For a map to violate Section Two of the Voting Rights Act, it must meet three criteria outlined in Thornburg v. Gingles.
- The minority group must be large enough to be a majority in a reasonable district.
- The group must be “politically cohesive.” In other words, if they voted as a bloc, their chosen representative would actually be elected.
- The white majority votes as a bloc that suppresses minority preferences
The district court found that the Alabama situation satisfied all three requirements. 27% of Alabama’s voting age population is Black, and 92.3% of them support Black candidates, while just 15% of white voters do.
If all three of those boxes are checked, the court engages in a “totality of the circumstances” analysis: When considering the unique history and context of the case, does the map create elections that are “equally open” to minority voters, as Section II demands?
The district court said the maps were not “equally open.” Because it was possible to create maps with two majority-black districts that followed traditional redistricting criteria, not doing so diluted Black votes.
Roberts agreed with all of that reasoning, and the bulk of his analysis was devoted to explaining why Alabama’s proposed “race-neutral” standard would be a disaster. As Roberts noted at the very start of his opinion, the case is not about the interpretation of Section II but is instead “about Alabama’s attempt to remake our §2 jurisprudence anew.” Alabama wanted the Court to overrule Gingles and the thirty years of precedent that rests on its back. Roberts refused.
More specifically, Alabama called for a map-comparison test that would analyze the drawn map in comparison to computer simulations, offering a median benchmark. Using this test, Alabama claims that their map looks similar to the computer mock-ups, making it more palatable. Roberts shot down this proposal, arguing that “‘equal access’ to the fundamental right of voting” shouldn’t turn on computer simulations. Further, tweaking the criteria that generate the map would fundamentally alter the product, making it very hard to create uniform benchmark results.
Roberts also nixed the parade of horribles that Alabama suggests. Ruling for the plaintiffs in this case will not lead directly to mandated proportionality (where a minority group’s elected representation must match their share of the population), Roberts concluded. Why? Because maps must still abide by the traditional constraints of redistricting, making it nearly impossible to force proportionality. Roberts pointed to Miller v. Johnson and Shaw v. Reno as evidence — two cases in which the Court found that adding an additional majority-minority district conflicted with geographical and political boundaries. Furthermore, as the United States grows less geographically segregated, it becomes even clearer when districts are created merely to manufacture proportionality.
In other words, Roberts’ opinion wasn’t a full-throated affirmation of the Voting Rights Act; instead, it was a powerful defense of precedent, and kept the conservative majority from further undermining the landmark legislation.
Kavanaugh’s concurrence:
Kavanaugh’s concurrence largely reiterated Roberts’ points. First of all, the standard for overruling statutory precedent is higher than constitutional precedent, Kavanaugh reminded readers. Because statutory precedent can be altered through the legislative process, the Court is unlikely to be proactive, especially in cases like Gingles, where Congress has left the standard untouched for decades. Kavanaugh also separately rebuked Alabama’s arguments about proportionality, race-blind computer simulations, and the constitutionality of Section II.
However, Kavanaugh refused to join Part III-B-1 of the Court’s opinion. In this section, Roberts endorsed “racial consciousness” when drawing maps, but distinguished “consciousness” from “predominance.” “The contention that mapmakers must be entirely “blind” to race has no footing in our §2 case law,” Roberts writes. Instead, race should be one factor in a larger analysis of the communities at hand. It’s a notable admission from Roberts, who is well-known for his claim that “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
The dissent:
From the outset of his dissent, Justice Thomas clearly established his view of the case: affirming the District Court’s ruling would be akin to mandating proportionality. Much like the Court gutted Section V of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder, Justice Thomas advocated for a wholesale dismantling of Section II. According to Thomas, Section II created a “race-based right to a ‘fair’ distribution of political power” that is at odds with the race-blind intentions of the Constitution. Further, the Court’s application of Section II was “based on a flawed method of statutory construction from its inception.”
High School SCOTUS 