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2 ALLEN v. MILLIGAN Syllabus In 1992, §2 litigation challenging the State of Alabama’s then-existing districting map resulted in the State’s first majority-black district and, subsequently, the State’s first black Representative since 1877. Alabama’s congressional map has remained remarkably similar since that litigation. Following the 2020 decennial census, a group of plaintiffs led by Alabama legislator Bobby Singleton sued the State, arguing that the State’s population growth rendered the existing congressional map malapportioned and racially gerrymandered in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. While litigation was proceeding, the Alabama Legislature’s Committee on Reapportionment drew a new districting map that would reflect the distribution of the prior decade’s population growth across the State. The resulting map largely resembled the 2011 map on which it was based and similarly produced only one district in which black voters constituted a majority. That new map was signed into law as HB1. Three groups of Alabama citizens brought suit seeking to stop Alabama’s Secretary of State from conducting congressional elections under HB1. One group (Caster plaintiffs) challenged HB1 as invalid under §2. Another group (Milligan plaintiffs) brought claims under §2 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. And a third group (the Singleton plaintiffs) amended the complaint in their ongoing litigation to challenge HB1 as a racial gerrymander under the Equal Protection Clause. A three-judge District Court was convened, and the Singleton and Milligan actions were consolidated before that District Court for purposes of preliminary injunction proceedings, while Caster proceeded before one of the judges on a parallel track. After an extensive hearing, the District Court concluded in a 227-page opinion that the question whether HB1 likely violated §2 was not “close.” The Court preliminarily enjoined Alabama from using HB1 in forthcoming elections. The same relief was ordered in Caster. Held: The Court affirms the District Court’s determination that plaintiffs demonstrated a reasonable likelihood of success on their claim that HB1 violates §2. Pp. 9–22, 25–34. (a) The District Court faithfully applied this Court’s precedents in concluding that HB1 likely violates §2. Pp. 9–15. (1) This Court first addressed the 1982 amendments to §2 in Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, and has for the last 37 years evaluated §2 claims using the Gingles framework. Gingles described the “essence of a §2 claim” as when “a certain electoral law, practice, or structure interacts with social and historical conditions to cause an inequality in the opportunities enjoyed by black and white voters.” Id., at 47. That occurs where an “electoral structure operates to minimize or cancel out” minority voters’ “ability to elect their preferred candidates.” Id., at 48. Such a risk is greatest “where minority and majority

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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

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Allen v. Milligan

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