The Supreme Court struck yet another blow against voting rights last week when it let Alabama use racially gerrymandered maps in the 2022 midterms. By a 5–4 vote, the ultraconservative justices halted a lower court order that had struck down Alabama’s redistricting plan. The state’s new plan radically dilutes the votes of racial minorities, denying them political power in violation of the Voting Rights Act.
A three-judge district court had ordered Alabama to create a new map in a 225-page decision, but the Supreme Court froze this injunction on the shadow docket without offering any explanation. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, however, wrote an alarming concurrence defending the court’s action, claiming that Alabama’s election is too close at hand to justify intervention. (The primary is more than three months away.) Kavanaugh also responded to Justice Elena Kagan’s scorching dissent, which accused the majority of once again altering the law through its shadow docket.
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