Page:Allen v. Milligan.pdf/2

Syllabus

In 1992, §2 litigation challenging the State of Alabama’s then-existing districting map resulted in the State’s first majority-black district and, subsequently, the State’s first black Representative since 1877. Alabama’s congressional map has remained remarkably similar since that litigation. Following the 2020 decennial census, a group of plaintiffs led by Alabama legislator Bobby Singleton sued the State, arguing that the State’s population growth rendered the existing congressional map malapportioned and racially gerrymandered in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. While litigation was proceeding, the Alabama Legislature’s Committee on Reapportionment drew a new districting map that would reflect the distribution of the prior decade’s population growth across the State. The resulting map largely resembled the 2011 map on which it was based and similarly produced only one district in which black voters constituted a majority. That new map was signed into law as HB1.

Three groups of Alabama citizens brought suit seeking to stop Alabama’s Secretary of State from conducting congressional elections under HB1. One group (Caster plaintiffs) challenged HB1 as invalid under §2. Another group (Milligan plaintiffs) brought claims under §2 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. And a third group (the Singleton plaintiffs) amended the complaint in their ongoing litigation to challenge HB1 as a racial gerrymander under the Equal Protection Clause. A three-judge District Court was convened, and the Singleton and Milligan actions were consolidated before that District Court for purposes of preliminary injunction proceedings, while Caster proceeded before one of the judges on a parallel track. After an extensive hearing, the District Court concluded in a 227-page opinion that the question whether HB1 likely violated §2 was not “close.” The Court preliminarily enjoined Alabama from using HB1 in forthcoming elections. The same relief was ordered in Caster.

Held: The Court affirms the District Court’s determination that plaintiffs demonstrated a reasonable likelihood of success on their claim that HB1 violates §2. Pp. 9–22, 25–34.

(a) The District Court faithfully applied this Court’s precedents in concluding that HB1 likely violates §2. Pp. 9–15.

(1) This Court first addressed the 1982 amendments to §2 in Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, and has for the last 37 years evaluated §2 claims using the Gingles framework. Gingles described the “essence of a §2 claim” as when “a certain electoral law, practice, or structure interacts with social and historical conditions to cause an inequality in the opportunities enjoyed by black and white voters.” Id., at 47. That occurs where an “electoral structure operates to minimize or cancel out” minority voters’ “ability to elect their preferred candidates.” Id., at 48. Such a risk is greatest “where minority and majority