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14 ALLEN v. MILLIGAN Opinion of the Court e.g., Supp. App. 164–173. But this Court has never held that a State’s adherence to a previously used districting plan can defeat a §2 claim. If that were the rule, a State could immunize from challenge a new racially discriminatory redistricting plan simply by claiming that it resembled an old racially discriminatory plan. That is not the law: §2 does not permit a State to provide some voters “less opportunity . . . to participate in the political process” just because the State has done it before. 52 U. S. C. §10301(b). As to the second and third Gingles preconditions, the District Court determined that there was “no serious dispute that Black voters are politically cohesive, nor that the challenged districts’ white majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to usually defeat Black voters’ preferred candidate.” 582 F. Supp. 3d, at 1016 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court noted that, “on average, Black voters supported their candidates of choice with 92.3% of the vote” while “white voters supported Black-preferred candidates with 15.4% of the vote.” Id., at 1017 (internal quotation marks omitted). Plaintiffs’ experts described the evidence of racially polarized voting in Alabama as “intens[e],” “very strong,” and “very clear.” Ibid. Even Alabama’s expert conceded “that the candidates preferred by white voters in the areas that he looked at regularly defeat the candidates preferred by Black voters.” Id., at 1018. Finally, the District Court concluded that plaintiffs had carried their burden at the totality of circumstances stage. The Court observed that elections in Alabama were racially polarized; that “Black Alabamians enjoy virtually zero success in statewide elections”; that political campaigns in Alabama had been “characterized by overt or subtle racial appeals”; and that “Alabama’s extensive history of repugnant racial and voting-related discrimination is undeniable and well documented.” Id., at 1018–1024. We see no reason to disturb the District Court’s careful factual findings, which are subject to clear error review and

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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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