Dem
47
GOP
53
When the Supreme Court overturned a lower court's order that struck down the Texas redistricting maps as improperly race-based (maps that were put in place in September 2025), the majority's reasoning was that the challenge had come too late (even though Texas' late action to redraw the maps precluded an earlier challenge) and that the district court had "improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections." This was a rather expansive reading of the "Purcell" principle, which is that judges should not get involved in voting rights cases too close to an election, so as not to create confusion among voters or upend election procedures that are already underway. In December 2025 when the Court issued this ruling, the Texas primary was still 4 months away.
Well, it would seem that the conservative majority on the Supreme Court has a rather fluid understanding of the Purcell rule. Or, to put it more directly, their sense of whether the rule applies depends on who is bringing the challenge and whether Republicans will benefit from its application. In its recent ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, the Court ignored the Purcell rule and held that Louisiana's maps that had been redrawn in response to an earlier court ruling could be scrapped for the 2026 election to get rid of its majority-minority districts, despite the fact that the primary was underway. This prompted the state's governor to immediately "suspend" the House elections (and nullify the votes already cast), so as to redraw the 2026 House districts according to SCOTUS' edict. Clearly, the conservatives on the Court aren't so concerned about disrupting a primary campaign or a governor cancelling it altogether if it helps their side win.
Now, in a move as predictable as a Trump shifting gears on Iran again (see above), the Supremes have yet again put their thumb on the scale for the Republicans by granting Alabama's emergency application to use a House map that a lower court had struck down as an improper racial gerrymander.
Alabama had been under an initial court order to redraw its map, which was found to be an intentional race-based gerrymander in violation of the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court upheld that decision in Allen v. Milligan. In 2023, after Alabama submitted another map, the lower court held that the new map also violated the VRA and was intentionally race-based. At that point, that court ordered a special master to draw a map and it was this map that was to be used in the 2026 primary and general elections. Alabama appealed, and the Supreme Court delayed hearing the appeal until after it issued its decision in Callais.
Yesterday, in a two paragraph order on its shadow docket, SCOTUS has thrown out the special master's map and vacated the lower court's decision striking down the redrawn 2023 map. As a result, Alabama can now use the 2023 map for this year's primary, which had been scheduled for next week. The state legislature passed a law on Saturday to authorize a "special primary election" for Congressional seats in the event the Court allowed the 2023 map to go back into effect. And that's just what the Supreme Court did. So much for the Purcell principle and the concern about causing confusion so close to an election or in an "active primary campaign."
But it's even worse than that. As Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor points out in her dissent, the district court found that Alabama had intentionally drawn the 2023 map based on race. Under Callais, intentional race-based gerrymandering violates Section 2 of the VRA. So, in an unexplained two paragraph order on the shadow docket, the majority is ignoring its own ruling from just two weeks ago to let Alabama use a map that intentionally denies Black voters their rights under the law. And Chief Justice John Roberts wonders how anyone could think the Supreme Court's decisions are based on politics.
The district court could still rule that the 2023 map violates the VRA. As Sotomayor notes, "the District Court remains free on remand to decide for itself whether Callais has any bearing on its Fourteenth Amendment analysis or if its prior reasoning is unaffected by that decision." We will soon see if the lower court is interested in, you know, democracy.
Meanwhile, Virginia has filed its own appeal to the Supreme Court of the district court's order throwing out its redrawn maps that the voters passed. Anyone care to bet how that one's going to turn out? We'll have a more thorough item about this tomorrow. (L)