The U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s Republican-appointed majority erased all doubts about the sweeping nature of its recent voting rights jurisprudence Tuesday night with a shadow docket ruling that effectively reverses the Court\u2019s own decision in the same matter just three years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The unsigned emergency order in Allen v. Milligan<\/a> goes beyond the court\u2019s recent Louisiana v. Callais<\/a> decision, which merely nullified the Voting Rights Act\u2019s (VRA) prohibition on unintentional racial discrimination, to also make it all but impossible for judges to strike down a map as intentionally discriminatory.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n It does so by essentially flipping its own 2023 ruling in the same case. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor excoriated that decision to go down the \u201cpath\u201d that \u201cdisregards both democratic values and the rule of law, leading to \u201ca chaotic election, held under a never-before-used congressional map that intentionally discriminates against Black Alabamians, that Alabama adopted in unashamed defiance of a prior court order directly affirmed by this Court, and that will require officials to change the voter registrations of hundreds of thousands of voters in just days at best, a task that Alabama previously represented would take months.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sotomayor noted that Tuesday\u2019s decision was the third time Alabama\u2019s congressional map had found its way before the high bench, lamenting that \u201c[e]ach turn reveals just how unconscionable the Court\u2019s action is today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was the Supreme Court\u2019s surprising decision to uphold Section 2 of the VRA in Milligan<\/a> just three years ago that gave civil rights groups and voting advocates some glimmer of hope<\/a> that it might truly preserve the law again in Callais.<\/p>\n\n\n Join 350,000 readers who rely on our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest in voting, elections and democracy.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\tGet updates straight to your inbox \u2014 for free\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t