The Supreme Court on Tuesday night granted Alabama Republicans an emergency appeal and allowed the state to use a congressional map that lower judges had ruled illegally discriminatory, a decision that could give the party an additional seat in the 2026 midterms.
The ruling came on a party-line vote and immediately put Alabama’s redistricting fight back at the center of the election map. Black Alabamians and other voters who would cast ballots under the plan are now facing a map the court has said can stay in place for the moment, even after a three-judge panel said it was tainted by intentional race-based discrimination.
The panel, which included two Trump appointees, had said in May that Alabama’s proposed map satisfied the Supreme Court’s new strict test from its Louisiana v. Callais decision and still violated the law because it was drawn with discriminatory intent. After reviewing the record again “with fresh eyes” in light of Callais, the judges wrote that they “cannot see our way clear to requiring Alabamians to cast their votes in the 2026 elections under a districting plan tainted by intentional race-based discrimination.”
The dispute has moved quickly since last month, when Chief Justice John Roberts said at a judicial conference that Supreme Court justices aren’t “political actors.” Soon after, the high court ordered the lower panel to reconsider its ruling “in light of” Callais. Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from that step on May 11, saying there was “no reason” for it and warning that the court was discarding a carefully documented finding of discrimination without a sound basis.
On Tuesday night, the Supreme Court took the opposite tack. Its majority said the lower panel “departed from Callais” and “did not heed the presumption of legislative good faith” when it found a discriminatory motive. Sotomayor said that approach risked a “chaotic election” by forcing voters onto “a never-before-used congressional map that intentionally discriminates against Black Alabamians.”
The immediate effect is that Alabama Republicans have won another round in a fight that could shape representation in Congress next year. The open question is whether the state will proceed to the 2026 elections under this map unless another court step changes the ruling before voters go to the polls.
