The U.S. Supreme Court late on May 11 cleared the way for Alabama to redraw its congressional election map to comply with the court’s landmark ruling limiting the use of race in redistricting.
The Supreme Court vacated lower court rulings that required Alabama to use a congressional map that included two majority-black districts out of the state’s seven districts.
Alabama and several other GOP-led states are currently in the process of an unusual mid-decade redistricting they hope will help Republicans retain control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the November elections.
The high court ruled last month in Louisiana v. Callais that race may be only a minor factor in redistricting rationales, not the predominant, overriding reason for how congressional district lines are drawn.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion, which was joined by two justices, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.