Alabama’s congressional map case, Allen v. Milligan, is before the Supreme Court for the third time. After the court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision narrowed federal Voting Rights Act protections, Alabama’s 2023 redistricting law—especially its language praisi
The Supreme Court is being asked to look at Alabama’s congressional lines for the third time, and this round hinges on something few states ever admit out loud: whether the map was drawn to favor white voters and diminish African American political power.
At stake is not just the shape of districts, but the legal threshold voting rights plaintiffs now have to clear—after the Supreme Court’s own recent decision made that bar dramatically higher.
About a month ago, the court decided Louisiana v. Callais, gutting the federal Voting Rights Act’s safeguards against legislative maps that lock voters of color out of power. The ruling effectively repealed a 1982 amendment to the VRA that had prohibited many state laws with a negative impact on nonwhite voters. even when those laws were not drawn with racist intent.
After Callais. a plaintiff challenging state legislative maps on racial grounds can win only “when the circumstances give rise to a strong inference that intentional discrimination occurred.” In practice. that is a difficult standard. Lawyers and judges are not mind readers. and—so the argument goes—state lawmakers generally aren’t foolish enough to say plainly that they designed a map to maximize white power and minimize nonwhite voting power.
But Alabama’s 2023 congressional redistricting law is at the heart of the case now before the Supreme Court. The law creates new maps that have never actually been used in an election. And the case focuses on how those maps treat two regions differently: the Gulf Coast region and the Black Belt.
The Black Belt is named after dark-colored soil, but it has a high African American population because many enslaved people were brought there before the Civil War. The Gulf Coast region, by contrast, is predominantly white.
A lower court decision that struck down the 2023 maps described what the challengers say the lines are doing: keeping “the Gulf Coast whole” while splitting the Black Belt in a way that shunts many Black voters into a majority-white district.
Even so, that kind of cracking alone does not necessarily doom the maps under Callais. The Supreme Court’s recent approach is viewed as highly favorable to gerrymandering. allowing states to diminish Black representation so long as the state frames the action as diluting Democratic votes rather than targeting race.
The difficulty for Alabama is that. according to the challenge. the 2023 law does not stop at treating the Gulf Coast more favorably. It also praises the “shared culture” of that region. saying it stems “from its French and Spanish colonial heritage.” The argument pressed by opponents is simple: France and Spain are European countries made up predominantly of white people.
In other words, the law’s language is not neutral description. It is an explicit reference to European “shared culture” tied to the Gulf Coast’s favorable treatment—language challengers say can support the exact inference Callais demands.
A key question now is whether the Supreme Court will accept that leap: whether the law’s praise of the Gulf Coast’s European heritage is enough, under the post-Callais standard, to show a “strong inference” of intentional discrimination.
The uncertainty is heightened by the court’s recent gerrymandering decisions. which appear designed to allow states to draw maps with far less federal oversight. A ruling in favor of Alabama would also benefit Republicans. in part because six of the Supreme Court’s nine seats are held by Republicans.
Still, the challenge carries a common thread that has become harder to enforce legally after Callais: even if intent is rarely stated, one thing states should not be able to do is design maps for the explicit purpose of favoring European Americans while disfavoring African Americans.
Whether Alabama’s 2023 congressional maps can clear even that relatively low bar is now in the Supreme Court’s hands.
Alabama Supreme Court congressional redistricting Allen v. Milligan Louisiana v. Callais Voting Rights Act gerrymandering Black Belt Gulf Coast European heritage African American voters Republican Party
Supreme Court again? They never move fast on anything else, but map drama gets top billing.
So basically Alabama gets to draw districts and now the Voting Rights Act is harder to use? That seems backwards like just because it’s harder doesn’t mean it’s fair.
Wait I thought Louisiana v. Callais was about stoplight cameras or something? But if it “repealed” stuff from 1982 then why is everyone acting like this is new. And can they prove intent? like people don’t write “make this unfair” on a napkin.
I don’t even live there and I’m sick of hearing about “Black Belt” maps like it’s geography math. If the map never got used in an election then what’s even the point of the case right now. Sounds like they’re just re-litigating the same thing until they get the answer they want.