A Supreme Court order that allowed Alabama to use its new congressional map for the 2022 election has ominous signs for federal challenges to redistricting plans in other states for the upcoming midterms and beyond.
The 5-4 decision Monday signals a tight timeline for ongoing federal challenges to alter congressional and legislative maps for 2022 elections under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, election law experts said. That includes challenges in Arkansas, Georgia, Ohio, Michigan and Washington, as well as Biden administration and other efforts to overturn Texas’ latest congressional map.
And the conservative majority of the high court appears ready to change the way federal courts decide similar cases in a way that could make it more difficult to use race to challenge future maps, those experts said.
