The gerrymandering wars are still raging. But on Tuesday, three Republican-appointed judges stood up to the Supreme Court that emboldened them. A three-judge panel in Alabama sent a simple message to the justices: If you want to allow racial discrimination in redistricting, you will have to do it over our vociferous objection.
The background: In April, the Supreme Court made it almost impossible to prove a violation of the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v. Callais. Shortly after Callais, the court’s six GOP appointees reinstated a 2023 Alabama congressional map that a three-judge panel had already found intentionally discriminated against Black voters.
On Tuesday, that panel, which includes two Trump appointees, responded that they are sticking by their original finding: Alabama’s map discriminates against Black voters in violation of both the VRA and the Constitution. As my colleague Ari Berman and I wrote today: “If the Supreme Court meant to use Callais to end all claims of anti-Black racial discrimination in gerrymandering, the panel effectively sends the case back to the high court and tells them, do your dirty work yourself.”
The Supreme Court wanted to hide behind this lower court panel and let them make way for a discriminatory map to take effect. But on Tuesday, one Southern court said they would have no part of this nakedly partisan project, writing, “We 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.”
If the Roberts Court really wants to hand this seat to Republicans this November, they will have to do it themselves.
—Pema Levy
