TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Paul Burch on Jun 8, 2023

The U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling today affirmed a lower court's decision that an Alabama electoral map diluted the voting power of Black residents in violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Reuters reports. The map was approved in 2021 by the Republican-controlled state legislature and featured one majority-Black district and six majority-white districts. In Thursday’s ruling, two consolidated cases before the Supreme Court involved challenges brought by Black voters and advocacy groups accusing Alabama of violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. A three-judge federal court panel sided with the challengers in 2022, blocking the map as a "substantially likely" violation of Section 2 and ordering an additional district where Black voters make up "a voting-age majority or something quite close to it." Alabama appealed to the Supreme Court.