Previous 24 / 112 Next

Cite as: 599 U. S. ____ (2023) 17 Opinion of the Court on account of race or color.” 52 U. S. C. §10301(a). What that means, §2 goes on to explain, is that the political processes in the State must be “equally open,” such that minority voters do not “have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.” §10301(b). We have understood the language of §2 against the background of the hard-fought compromise that Congress struck. To that end, we have reiterated that §2 turns on the presence of discriminatory effects, not discriminatory intent. See, e.g., Chisom v. Roemer, 501 U. S. 380, 403–404 (1991). And we have explained that “[i]t is patently clear that Congress has used the words ‘on account of race or color’ in the Act to mean ‘with respect to’ race or color, and not to connote any required purpose of racial discrimination.” Gingles, 478 U. S., at 71, n. 34 (plurality opinion) (some alterations omitted). Individuals thus lack an equal opportunity to participate in the political process when a State’s electoral structure operates in a manner that “minimize[s] or cancel[s] out the[ir] voting strength.” Id., at 47. That occurs where an individual is disabled from “enter[ing] into the political process in a reliable and meaningful manner” “in the light of past and present reality, political and otherwise.” White, 412 U. S., at 767, 770. A district is not equally open, in other words, when minority voters face—unlike their majority peers—bloc voting along racial lines, arising against the backdrop of substantial racial discrimination within the State, that renders a minority vote unequal to a vote by a nonminority voter. The State’s reading of §2, by contrast, runs headlong into our precedent. Alabama asserts that a State’s map does not “abridge[ ]” a person’s right to vote “on account of race” if the map resembles a sufficient number of race-neutral alternatives. See Brief for Alabama 54–56. But our cases have consistently focused, for purposes of litigation, on the

Select target paragraph3

● ● ●

Allen v. Milligan

Judgment

Question Presented: Whether Alabama's 2021 congressional redistricting plan (HB1) — which created only one majority-Black district out of seven in a state that is 27% Black — violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by diluting Black voting strength.

Alleged Acts: Alabama's population is approximately 27% Black. Following the 2020 census, the Alabama Legislature enacted HB1, a congressional redistricting plan containing seven districts, only one of which (District 7, held by Rep. Terri Sewell) had a majority-Black voting-age population. The remaining six districts were majority-white. A group of Alabama voters and organizations (led by Edward Allen and others, including the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP and Greater Birmingham Ministries) sued Wes Allen, the Alabama Secretary of State, and other state officials, alleging that HB1 diluted Black voting strength in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by "packing" Black voters into a single district (CD7) and "cracking" the remaining Black population across the other six districts, preventing the creation of a second majority-Black or effective Black opportunity district. Plaintiffs argued that Alabama's Black population — concentrated in the Black Belt region and the Mobile area — was sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in two reasonably configured districts.

Procedural history: A three-judge district court, after considering a "massive factual record" including expert testimony, illustrative maps, and statistical analyses, held that plaintiffs had demonstrated a reasonable likelihood of success on their Section 2 claim and granted a preliminary injunction ordering the State to draw a new plan with a second Black opportunity district for the 2022 elections. The court found that all three Gingles preconditions were satisfied: (1) the Black population was sufficiently large and geographically compact; (2) Black voters were politically cohesive; and (3) white bloc voting was sufficient to defeat Black-preferred candidates.

Summary: In a 5–4 decision, the Supreme Court affirmed the district court and held that Alabama's congressional redistricting plan likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The Court rejected the State's argument that any second majority-Black district would be non-compact. The Court held that the district court had properly evaluated plaintiffs' illustrative maps, which demonstrated that a second Black opportunity district could be drawn in a reasonably compact configuration connecting the Black Belt region with the Mobile area. The Court emphasized that the first Gingles precondition does not require "perfect" compactness or the most compact district possible — it requires only that the district be "reasonably configured." The Court noted that the State's own expert had acknowledged that the illustrative maps were "reasonably compact." The Court squarely rejected the State's argument for a "race-neutral benchmark" theory, which would have required courts to evaluate Section 2 claims by comparing the challenged plan to a hypothetical race-neutral plan rather than by applying the established Gingles framework. The Court held that this approach was inconsistent with Section 2's text and the Court's precedents. The Court rejected the State's argument that applying Section 2 to require a second majority-Black district would itself constitute an unconstitutional racial classification under the Equal Protection Clause. The Court held that Section 2 is a valid exercise of Congress's enforcement power under the Fifteenth Amendment and that its application does not require an unconstitutional sorting of voters by race. The Court distinguished Section 2 vote dilution claims from racial gerrymandering claims under Shaw v. Reno and Cooper v. Harris, noting that Section 2 claims address the dilution of minority voting strength, not the racial sorting of voters.

Conclusion: Allen v. Milligan is a landmark Voting Rights Act decision in which the Supreme Court affirmed that Alabama's 2021 congressional redistricting plan — which created only one majority-Black district out of seven in a state that is 27% Black — likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by diluting Black voting strength. In a 5–4 decision, the Court reaffirmed the Gingles framework as the governing standard for Section 2 vote dilution claims and held that all three preconditions were satisfied: Alabama's Black population was sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a second reasonably configured district; Black voters were politically cohesive; and white bloc voting was sufficient to defeat Black-preferred candidates. The Court rejected the State's proposed "race-neutral benchmark" theory, holding that Section 2 applies straightforwardly and that the Gingles framework — not a hypothetical race-neutral comparison — governs such claims. The Court also held that the application of Section 2 to require a second majority-Black district did not constitute an unconstitutional racial classification under the Equal Protection Clause, distinguishing Section 2 vote dilution claims from racial gerrymandering claims under Shaw and Cooper. The decision was significant because it reaffirmed the continuing vitality of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act after the Court's decision in Shelby County v. Holder (2013) had effectively gutted Section 5, and it rejected attempts by covered jurisdictions to narrow the scope of Section 2 through novel legal theories. The decision required Alabama to redraw its congressional map to include a second Black opportunity district and prompted similar redrawing in Louisiana, with ripple effects across other Southern states.

Legal Issue(s)

Electoral Maps and Districting
Voters' Rights

Applicable Law(s): Voting Rights Act of 1965, Fourteenth Amendment, and Fifteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution

Region: Americas

Country: United States of America

Language of Decision

English

Court: Supreme Court

Election Type: General

Date of decision: Jun 8, 2023

Geolocation

Latitude: 38.890591

Longitude: -77.004745

: Geolocation

Link: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf

Primary Documents

Allen v. Milligan.pdf
English
Download View

Election Judgments - IFES

Select target paragraph3

Allen v. Milligan

Primary Documents

Notifications