The Supreme Court hears arguments in Merrill v. Milligan Tuesday, a redistricting case that will give the conservatives an opportunity to gut the Voting Rights Act even more thoroughly.
At the center of the case is a congressional map, drawn by the Alabama legislature, that packed most of the state’s Black voters into one district even though Black Alabamians comprise 27 percent of state’s voting-age population. The map was challenged by voters and civil rights groups.
Alabama is asking the Court to throw away its traditional tests to identify illegal racial gerrymanders and to replace them with a new framework that would make such vote-dilution cases nearly impossible to prove. The justices in the right-wing majority gave a sign as to their posture on the case when they stayed an unexpected ruling from a lower court panel of judges — dominated by Trump appointees — tossing out the legislature’s map as a likely violation of the VRA and ordering a redraw.