The Supreme Court stayed a ruling striking Alabama's 2023 congressional map, allowing the state to use it in 2026 despite a finding of intentional racial discrimination.
The Supreme Court issued an unsigned order on June 2, 2026, staying a federal district court ruling and allowing Alabama to use its 2023 congressional map in the upcoming midterm elections, despite a lower court's finding that the map intentionally diluted Black voting power in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment [1]. The Court did not issue a full opinion, relying instead on the Purcell principle, the doctrine barring courts from altering election rules close to an election, as the operative basis for granting the stay [1].
The case, Allen v. Milligan, has a protracted procedural history. The district court had previously struck down Alabama's map under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a ruling the Supreme Court affirmed in 2023. Alabama then drew a remedial map in 2023, which challengers argued still failed to create a second majority-Black congressional district. The district court agreed, issuing a new ruling finding intentional racial discrimination under the Fourteenth Amendment, independent of any Section 2 analysis [1]. That ruling, not the earlier Voting Rights Act holding, was the direct target of the stay application before the Court [1].
Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented [1]. The dissenters argued that the district court's intentional-discrimination finding rested on a constitutional theory distinct from the framework at issue in Callais v. Landry, a separate redistricting dispute, and that the majority had no principled basis for treating the two as equivalent [1]. The Purcell principle, the dissenters contended, should not function as a blanket shield against remedying a map a court has already found to reflect deliberate racial animus [1].
The order carries immediate consequences for 2026 House races in Alabama. With the stay in place, candidates will file and campaigns will organize around a map the district court condemned as intentionally discriminatory [1]. Beyond Alabama, the decision signals that states facing redistricting violations can, in practical effect, run at least one more election cycle on a challenged map simply by prolonging litigation past the Purcell window. That dynamic is likely to draw attention from redistricting litigants and state legislatures in states with pending or anticipated map challenges.
The underlying merits remain unresolved. The stay preserves the status quo for 2026 but does not foreclose further litigation after the election cycle concludes [1].