Alabama’s congressional maps have been in and out of the Supreme Court for a while now, a fact which has made it hard to follow exactly what is going on. After an emergency-docket decision from the Supreme Court on Tuesday, I decided to understand once and for all what has been happening with Alabama’s redistricting litigation.
This case involves so much back and forth that it’s easy to get lost in the details. I certainly have.
The dissent in Tuesday’s emergency decision points out why this latest decision from the Court is problematic. The most compelling to me is that the District Court actually did reconsider the case in light of Callais—as Callais was written—and the result was that it found Alabama’s 2023 map was intentional discrimination under the 14th Amendment.
One of the issues with Callais is that it says one thing and does another. If Callais is actually about what it takes to prove intentional discrimination under the 14th Amendment, even though it doesn’t talk about that, how is anyone supposed to know? What else is lying in that case that we have yet to figure out? One of the criticisms the Supreme Court has been getting lately is that it is questioning the work of the lower courts more and more, but it’s also not providing clear guidance when it drastically changes the law (which it is doing a lot). The more the law feels like something that lives in the minds of 5-6 people, the less it feels like a universal thing that can be applied and relied upon.
My friend Kelcey Ervick curates a newsletter called Letters to Dead Authors and Artists, each week created by a different person. If you head on over there, you’ll find that this week it includes my letter to the creators of the Magic School Bus books (the original ones). I pulled them out of my parents’ basement last fall and we are now obsessed.
Thanks for being here, especially on a day like today, where I am experimenting with a verrrry long explanation…
A few resources for those interested:
Supreme Court Opinions/Orders relating to Alabama’s Maps
Callais Decision on the Voting Rights Act from the Supreme Court.
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