Supreme Court strikes down ballot card that discriminates against black voters

The Supreme Court ordered Alabama to redraw its voting cards for discriminating against black Americans in a shocking ruling on Thursday.

The justices voted 5 to 4 to knock down congressional districts drafted by Republicans because they do not represent the state’s racial population breakdown.

Alabama had only one in seven seats where the majority of voters were black, even though one in four residents is African American. That district reliably elected a Democrat, while the other six were dominated by Republicans.

The nation’s highest court ruled that this was a likely violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a landmark civil rights law, and ordered the maps redrawn.

The surprise decision was made possible by Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh aligning themselves with the court’s four liberals.

The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a surprising 5-4 ruling in favor of black voters in a congressional redistricting case, ordering the creation of a second district with a large black population. Evan Milligan, the plaintiff, speaks out of court

The case had been closely watched because of its potential to weaken the landmark Voting Rights Act.

It was part of a larger battle over redistricting across the country, where civil rights advocates say the process penalizes minority communities, while Republican state officials say the constitution takes race into limited consideration when drawing constituencies.

Roberts wrote that there were legitimate concerns that the Voting Rights Act “could improperly elevate race in the allocation of political power within the states,” but he added: “Our opinion today does not diminish or ignore these concerns not. It simply means that a faithful application of our precedents and a fair reading of the record before us does not confirm them here.”

The court had allowed the contested map to be used for the 2022 election, and during arguments in October, the judges seemed willing to make it more difficult to use the voting rights law to challenge redistribution plans as racially discriminatory.

The chief justice himself suggested last year that he was open to changes in how courts consider discrimination claims under the part of the law known as Section 2.

But on Thursday Roberts wrote that the court declined to “reorder our Section 2 case law, as Alabama requests.”

Roberts has been part of conservative Supreme Court majorities in previous cases that made it more difficult for racial minorities to use the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in ideologically divided rulings in 2013 And 2021.

The other four conservative justices expressed their opinion on Thursday. Judge Clarence Thomas wrote that the decision “forces Alabama to deliberately redesign its longstanding congressional districts so that black voters can control a number of seats roughly proportional to the black share of the state’s population.” Section 2 does not require such a thing, and if it did, the Constitution would not allow it.”

The current case stems from challenges to Alabama’s seven-county congressional map, including one in which black voters form a large enough majority to have the power to choose their preferred candidate.

The challengers said one district is not enough, pointing out that more than 25 percent of Alabama’s total population is black.

A three-judge court, with two of former President Donald Trump’s appointees, had little trouble concluding that the plan likely violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the votes of Black Alabamians. The panel ordered a new map to be drawn.

But the state quickly appealed to the Supreme Court, where five conservative judges blocked the lower court’s ruling. They allowed last year’s congressional elections to go ahead on the map that the lower court says is likely illegal.

At the same time, the court decided to hear the Alabama case, and arguments took place in early October.