In January 2022, a federal court struck down the maps. The unanimous decision halted the implementation of the maps and ordered the state Legislature to draft a new congressional map that complies with the Voting Rights Act. Despite the district court ruling ordering new maps to be drawn, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Alabama’s bid to block the state from having to redraw its maps and the maps remained in place.
On Oct. 4, 2022, Legal Defense Fund (LDF) Senior Counsel Deuel Ross presented oral argument before the Supreme Court in Merrill v. Milligan, LDF’s first case before the Court in six years.
His opening line, “There is nothing race-neutral about Alabama’s map,” became widely popular on Twitter and in media coverage about the case, because it demonstrated the deeply hypocritical nature of Alabama’s argument.
He continued, “The district court’s unanimous and thorough intensely local analysis did not err in finding that the Black Belt is a historic and extremely poor community of substantial significance. Yet, Alabama’s map cracks that community and allows white bloc voting to deny Black voters the opportunity to elect representation responsive to their needs. Rather than argue clear error, Alabama asks us to ignore statutory stare decisis [precedent] and to rewrite Section 2’s text” by arguing that plaintiffs must demonstrate that Alabama intended to engage in discrimination when it drew the maps for a Section 2 violation to apply.”