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The U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday evening allowed Alabama to use a 2023 congressional map, reversing a lower court’s ruling that repeatedly deemed the map racially discriminatory.

In an unsigned 6-3 decision on the case known as Allen v. Milligan, the court wrote that the lower court’s map would not be “more convenient” for Alabama than the congressional map the Legislature passed in 2023.

“Here, the District Court interposed itself into Alabama’s ongoing efforts to conduct its imminent 2026 congressional elections under maps that its elected representatives selected,” the justices wrote. “While federal courts should not impose changes close to an election, states are free to decide for themselves whether last-minute changes to an election are in their best interests.”

The order comes almost a month after the U.S. Supreme Court substantially weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in a case known as Louisiana v. Callais, and weeks after Gov. Kay Ivey called a special session in which Republican lawmakers set special primaries for August in the expectation that the state would be allowed to use the 2023 map, which would likely cost Democrats a seat in Alabama’s House delegation.

Plaintiffs in the case Monday filed a 54-page brief urging the court to uphold the Northern District of Alabama District Court’s May 26 ruling that the Legislature-passed congressional map denied Black Alabamians the chance to elect a candidate of their choice.

SCOTUS Ruling on Voting Rights Act Puts a Third of Black Caucus Seats at Risk

The plaintiffs argued that there was no time to reassign voters under a new map; the 2023 map intentionally discriminated against Black Alabamians; and the lower court found the map still violates Section 2 after the Callais decision.

“Nothing has changed in Alabama or the record to warrant a different conclusion today. The Court should deny Alabama’s stay motion on any one or more of these independent grounds,” the brief stated.

Justice Sonya Sotomayor, joined by justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented from the court’s opinion and warned the decision would set a precedent of chaos.

“Before the Court are two paths. Down one lies an orderly election, held under a tried-and-tested congressional map that protects Black Alabamians’ right to vote and with which all voters, elections officials, and candidates alike are familiar. Down the other lies a........

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