Supreme Court Hypocrisy, Part 2

On Friday, I described how the Purcell principle, the idea that courts should not make decisions involving voting close to elections due to the possibility of creating voter confusion, has been used to favor Republicans and disadvantage Democrats. Two cases that I mentioned on Friday are important for today's post. In the first, Allen v. Milligan, the Supreme Court, after first allowing maps that lower courts had found to be unlawful due to violating the Voting Rights Act to be used in elections, ruled that the lower court decision was likely correct. This led Alabama to create a second majority-minority district. In the second case, Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court — in a rare exception — had applied the Purcell principle in a way that favored minority voters. The court had rebuffed an attempt by Louisiana's state legislature to introduce new voting maps that eliminated one of two majority-minority districts. The new maps, said the court, were being introduced too close to the election. However, things did not stop at this point and, as I will explain today, have resulted in a situation in which almost all majority-minority districts in the South will be eliminated. As for the Purcell principle, that appears to now be irrelevant when changes close to elections benefit Republicans.

Perhaps the best starting point for describing how we got to this point is the effort in Texas to conduct mid-decade redistricting. Traditionally, redistricting occurs after the decennial census, or close to the beginning of each decade. However, in 2025, with Republicans realizing that their chances of holding on to their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives were slim, cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump urged Texas Governor Greg Abbott to undertake mid-decade redistricting aimed at eliminating seats held by Democrats. The Texas legislature eventually came up with a map that eliminated five Democratic districts, all of them having majority-minority populations.

The Texas map was challenged in federal district court, where the map was ruled to be an unlawful racial gerrymander. The court implemented a temporary injunction to prevent the new map from being used in the upcoming midterm elections. In December, the Supreme Court stayed the district court's ruling, in part due to the Purcell principle, saying that the district court's decision came too close to the election. In a concurring opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that "Texas needs certainty on which map will govern the 2026 midterm elections." Remember that this was more than 11 months before the midterm.

A second important aspect of the Supreme Court's move to block the lower court's decision was the argument that partisan gerrymandering is acceptable even if racial gerrymandering continues to be illegal. Despite the fact that only minority districts were being eliminated by the Texas map, Alito held that even dissenting justices do "not dispute—because it is indisputable—that the impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple." This ignores considerable evidence in the district case that race was very much a motivation for the new map. Moreover, the result of only minority districts being removed speaks for itself.

In New York, Democrats challenged the validity of a district held by Republican Representative Nicole Malliotakis, arguing that the district was drawn to dilute Black and Latino voting power. A district judge agreed with the Democrats and ruled that the district was drawn unconstitutionally. However, Alito jumped into the fray even before appellate courts had a chance to hear the case and granted a stay on the judge's ruling. Once again, the Purcell principle was used to benefit Republicans.

Meanwhile, Louisiana v. Callais was again advancing to the Supreme Court. During oral arguments, the case was widely seen as an attack on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. In April of this year, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that the current map in Louisiana — this was a map selected by a district court and had two majority-minority districts — was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The plaintiffs, who had won the case, asked the Court to forgo its normal 32-day window before certifying the case and make the decision effective immediately. This would allow the state to redraw its map prior to the 2026 midterm election. Completely ignoring the Purcell principle, the court granted the request. Remember that in December 2025, the same court had ruled that it was too close to the election to replace Texas' map that eliminated five majority-minority seats, but April of this year magically left sufficient time for Louisiana to introduce a map that would eliminate a minority district. The only consistency was that both decisions benefited Republicans and harmed minority voters. In Louisiana, Governor Jeff Landry suspended the May 16 primary, despite voting already being underway.

There was another aspect to the Callais ruling that is worth considering. As I noted in my introduction, in 2022 in Allen v. Milligan, the Supreme Court had ruled to protect majority-minority districts and found that an attempt in Alabama to eliminate one of two districts had violated Section 2 of the VRA. As dissenting justices noted, the Callais decision effectively overturned Allen. Alito denied this was the case, writing "Second, contrary to the dissent’s assertion, we have not overruled Allen."

Nevertheless, several southern states immediately launched redistricting efforts based on Callais, claiming that their existing maps containing majority-minority districts were unconstitutional. Tennessee Republicans split the city of Memphis, which had previously anchored the only majority-minority district in the state, into three different districts running to the far corners of the state. Florida Republicans also rammed through a new redistricting map that would eliminate four Democratic-held seats.

But the worst travesty involved Alabama. Remember that the current map in Alabama was selected by a court that had ruled that maps drawn by the state legislature unlawfully diluted minority votes. The Supreme Court had upheld the district court's ruling in Allen v. Milligan, and Alito had emphasized in Callais that Allen was not being overruled. Nevertheless, Alabama filed an emergency motion to allow the legislature-drawn map to be used. Voting had already started in the state, but the Supreme Court still granted the request. So much for the Purcell principle.

Some southern states, notably Georgia and probably Mississippi, will not redraw their maps prior to this year's midterm. However, they are planning to do so before 2028. Therefore, within the next two years, most, if not all, minority-majority districts will be eliminated in the South. This will allegedly be done on a partisan basis rather than for racial reasons. That is the loophole that Alito has provided.

The Purcell principle has repeatedly been used to stop Democrats from making likely electoral gains. In contrast, it has either been used or, more often, ignored to the benefit of Republicans. While nearly a year has been considered too close for changes that might help Democrats, the Supreme Court is now comfortable with changes that take place literally after voting has started. Remember that three states were earlier allowed to use maps that unlawfully discriminated against minority voters because the Supreme Court thought it was too close to the election to replace the maps with legal versions. Now, in two of the three states, new maps are being allowed while voting is already underway. The difference is that these changes favor Republicans.

Samuel Alito has acted as little more than a partisan hack for some time. His behavior, therefore, should not be surprising. But the fact that he boldly lied in the Callais decision, saying that Allen was not being overruled and then overruled it within days, should still be shocking.

As Marc Elias wrote on his Democracy Docket blog:

The pattern is unmistakable. In case after case, the window in which courts may act to protect Democrats and Black voters has been shrunk to nearly nothing. Meanwhile, the Court has moved with urgency to protect maps that favor white voters and Republican candidates, even when doing so required acting closer to an election than it had previously deemed acceptable.