SCOTUS majority gives Alabama GOP a chance to use a map already found to be unconstitutional - Chris Geidner [View all]

[In It to Win It]

https://www.lawdork.com/p/scotus-majority-gives-alabama-gop

The U.S. Supreme Court’s Republican appointees gave Republicans in Alabama another shot at using a congressional map that has been blocked because a lower court found that it had violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and intentionally violated the Fourteenth Amendment.

The court vacated the judgments in long-running challenges over Alabama’s congressional maps — effectively wiping out a 268-page opinion that blocked Alabama 2023 map in one paragraph — over a dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor that was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

And though Alabama already acted in the wake of April 29’s Louisiana v. Callais Supreme Court decision gutting what remained of the Voting Rights Act to move some primary elections if the courts cleared the way for them to do so, Sotomayor’s dissent on Monday suggested it might not be that simple.

The Supreme Court’s unsigned, unreasoned order purported to be an application of Callais in what’s known as a grant, vacate, remand (or, GVR) order, but there are two key elements of this GVR that make it particularly troubling.

As Sotomayor notes:

— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner.bsky.social) 2026-05-11T21:48:48.687Z

And, in Sotomayor's conclusion, a swipe at the majority and a note to the district court as to its Fourteenth Amendment analysis:

— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner.bsky.social) 2026-05-11T21:50:29.755Z

Sotomayor: "In addition to holding that Alabama’s 2023 Redistricting Plan violates §2, the District Ct. held, in one [case], that Alabama violated the Fourteenth Amendment by intentionally diluting the votes of Black voters in Alabama."

The SCOTUS majority said nothing about that—or anything else.

— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner.bsky.social) 2026-05-11T22:03:48.961Z

Here's my report at Law Dork: www.lawdork.com/p/scotus-maj...

— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner.bsky.social) 2026-05-12T00:28:51.462Z