US Supreme Court clears way for Alabama to use pro-Republican voting map

WASHINGTON, June 2 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way on Tuesday for Alabama to use a pro-Republican congressional map that eliminates one of its two districts where Black voters make up a majority or ​near-majority, giving a boost to President Donald Trump as his party defends its control of Congress in November’s midterm elections.

The justices halted a lower court ruling that had blocked Alabama officials ‌from putting in place a map that aims to flip a U.S. House of Representatives district currently held by a Black Democratic congressman to the Republicans.

The action by the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, came in an unsigned order. The three liberal justices dissented from the decision.

In its ruling, the conservative majority said Alabama was likely to ultimately defeat a legal challenge to its preferred map that was brought by several sets of plaintiffs including a group of Black voters.

Black voters typically ​support Democratic candidates. Republicans are defending narrow majorities in the House and Senate in the midterms.

The ruling on Tuesday cast doubt on the challengers’ claim that Alabama’s pro-Republican map violates the Voting Rights ​Act, a 1965 law intended to prevent discrimination in voting, and the U.S. Constitution’s promise of equal protection under the law.

“The state is likely to succeed ⁠on the merits as to both claims,” the conservative majority wrote. It added that, “States are free to decide for themselves whether last-minute changes to an election are in their best interests.”

The court’s action came amid a ​new and frenzied round of congressional redistricting that has unfolded across the South, as Republican-led states have scrambled to take advantage of an April Supreme Court decision that severely weakened the Voting Rights Act.

In the wake of ​that landmark decision, Tennessee approved a new map that broke up a majority-Black, Democratic-held district based in Memphis, while Louisiana adopted a plan to eliminate one of two districts with sizable Black populations in that state.

Alabama Republicans asked the Supreme Court to lift the judicial block put in place on May 26 by a federal three-judge panel that had halted the Republican-backed map’s use in the 2026 elections.

The lower court said the pro-Republican map intentionally discriminated against Black voters in violation of the equal protection ​principle and likely still violated the Voting Rights Act, even under the significantly heightened legal standard announced in the April ruling.

The Supreme Court’s three liberal justices condemned the majority’s decision in an opinion authored by ​Justice Sonia Sotomayor and joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, writing that the ruling “disregards both democratic values and the rule of law.”

Deuel Ross, a lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, which represents a group of Black ‌voters that ⁠challenged Alabama’s map, said the Supreme Court’s ruling on Tuesday “gives cover to Alabama and others to deliberately and openly discriminate against Black voters without fear of any consequence.”

“The court’s shameless decision to reinstate an intentionally discriminatory map defies any thoughtful or consistent application of the law,” he said, adding that his group would continue to fight for Alabama voters “to have the fair representation that they deserve.”

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, called the ruling “a major victory for Alabama and for the principle of self-governance.”

“The United States Supreme Court confirmed what we always knew: that Alabama’s Congressional maps are constitutional and lawful under the Voting Rights Act,” he said.

“The court’s ​decision to stay the district court’s injunction affirms that ​Alabama’s elected representatives, not federal judges, have the ⁠primary authority to draw the maps under which Alabamians choose their own leaders.”

Litigation over Alabama’s congressional map has ricocheted between the Supreme Court and the federal three-judge panel in recent years.

Republican state legislators have sought to return to a map they approved in 2023 that the same three-judge panel previously had deemed discriminatory. That ​map would drop the number of districts where Black voters comprise a majority or near-majority from two to one out of the state’s seven U.S. House ​districts. Black people make up ⁠about a quarter of Alabama’s population.

On May 11, the Supreme Court granted the state’s request to lift the lower court’s prior ruling blocking Alabama from using the map, before the three-judge panel weeks later imposed a new judicial block, prompting Alabama’s most recent filing to the justices.

Alabama Republicans had argued in their filing to the Supreme Court that voters would face “irreparable harm” if the state were required to use a map approved by the lower court instead of ⁠theirs.

In a process ​called redistricting, the boundaries of legislative districts across the United States are reconfigured to reflect population changes as measured by the ​national U.S. census every 10 years. Redistricting traditionally has been carried out by state legislatures at the start of each new decade, making the mid-decade redistricting fight now unfolding highly unusual.

Trump ignited the current battle last year by pushing Republican-governed Texas to redraw its ​electoral map in a bid to flip five Democratic-held U.S. House seats, setting off similar efforts in a number of other Republican- and Democratic-led states.