The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruled Tuesday, 6-3, in favor of Alabama’s efforts to use a 6-1 Republican congressional map for the 2026 election.
A three-judge panel of federal judges last week granted a motion by left-wing activist groups to block the use of a 6-1 Republican congressional map passed by lawmakers in 2023.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall requested in a filing last week that SCOTUS enter an administrative stay and a stay pending appeal of the injunctions barring the State from using the 6-1 plan in the upcoming August 11 congressional special primary elections and November general election.
According to a brief filed by Solicitor General John Sauer, the 5-2 congressional map mandated by the three-judge panel is a “court-ordered racial gerrymander.”
A 6-3 majority of SCOTUS justices ruled on Tuesday that Alabama should be allowed to use the 6-1 Republican congressional map passed by lawmakers in 2023.
“The District Court found a violation even though the plaintiffs’ alternative map would not perform just as well as to the State’s constitutionally permissible criteria of keeping together the Gulf Coast community of interest and avoiding the pairing of incumbents. The District Court also failed to follow our instruction in Callais that the mere fact that voters of different races vote for different parties is not relevant to proving racially polarized voting patterns. See id., at ___ (slip op., at 30). The State has also made a strong showing of irreparable harm and that the equities and public interest favor it. We have repeatedly cautioned that lower federal courts should not “alter the election rules on the eve of an election,” the justices wrote. “Here, the District Court interposed itself into Alabama’s ongoing efforts to conduct its imminent 2026 congressional elections under maps that its elected representatives selected. Its view that conducting the elections under court-imposed maps would be more convenient for the State was not a valid justification for that intervention. While federal courts should not impose changes close to an election, ibid., States are free to decide for themselves whether last-minute changes to an election are in their best interests.”
SCOTUS Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
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