Alabama’s new map violates Section 2 despite Supreme Court’s VRA weakening
Alabama’s request to use a GOP-friendly congressional map that reduces Black voting power has been blocked by a federal court, directly citing the Voting Rights Act’s Section 2, even as the Supreme Court’s recent Louisiana v. Callais ruling narrows that same provision.
Alabama is now testing the limits of the Supreme Court’s April 2026 ruling in *Louisiana v. Callais*, which weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The state’s legislature drew a new congressional map that would flip a Democratic-held seat to the GOP and dilute Black voting strength, arguing the *Callais* decision frees it from earlier constraints. But a federal district court blocked the map on May 26, 2026, finding that even under the new, narrower standard, the map still intentionally discriminates against Black voters—a separate and still-prohibited practice. The court’s stand creates a contradiction: the same Supreme Court that hollowed out the VRA’s effects test now confronts a map that fails even its own watered-down test. The practical harm is immediate: Black Alabamians, who make up roughly 27% of the state’s population, are at risk of losing their only truly competitive congressional seat, returning to a near-total white Republican lock on seven of the seven seats. The state’s emergency application to the Supreme Court, filed May 27, 2026, asks the conservative majority to override the lower court. If granted, it would signal that no judicial remedy remains for racial gerrymandering, effectively ending Section 2 as a check on state power.
The humanitarian alternative
Congress should restore the Section 2 effects test to its pre-Arkansas/Allen v. Milligan strength and explicitly codify the ‘Gingles preconditions’ that require states to draw majority-minority districts where racially polarized voting exists and a compact minority community can form a seat. The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which passed the House in 2021 but stalled in the Senate, provides a ready template. States like Alabama should be required to adopt independent redistricting commissions, as several states already have, to remove partisan and racial bias from the line-drawing process. The alternative is not to abandon racial fairness but to update the legal framework to block intentional discrimination and ensure minority voters have a realistic chance to elect candidates of their choice.
Falsifiable predictions
What this entry claims will happen, and what data would prove it wrong. The Reckoner revisits these against current reality.
- The Supreme Court will grant Alabama’s emergency stay application, allowing the state to use the new map for the 2026 elections.
- If the Court allows the map, at least three other Southern states will propose new congressional maps reducing majority-minority districts within six months.
Grounded in
- Supreme Court urged to uphold lower court decision striking Alabama ...
- Allen v. Milligan | American Civil Liberties Union
- Alabama asks Supreme Court to let it use pro-GOP congressional map
- Several states are scrambling to redraw congressional maps ...
- Federal court blocks Alabama's plan for new US House map | AP News
- Alabama Files Emergency Stay Applications with U.S. Supreme Court in ...
- Milligan v. Allen (was Merrill) - All About Redistricting
- Allen v. Milligan (21-1086) | SCOTUSblog
- PDF Supreme Court of the United States
Original source — excerpted
news Alabama’s new congressional maps do the one thing the Supreme Court still forbids"is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he focuses on the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and the decline of liberal democracy in the United States. He receive..."