{"id":946,"date":"2026-06-03T12:12:37","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T12:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=946"},"modified":"2026-06-03T12:12:37","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T12:12:37","slug":"debases-the-democratic-process-sotomayor-pens-scathing-dissent-in-courts-latest-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=946","title":{"rendered":"‘Debases the Democratic process’: Sotomayor pens scathing dissent in court’s latest ruling"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The US Supreme Court late Tuesday gave Alabama a green light to use an aggressively gerrymandered congressional map that a lower court said was \u201ctainted by intentional race-based discrimination.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Trump is becoming a massive liability for one of his favorite foreign allies<\/a><\/p>\n

The unsigned , from which the high court\u2019s three liberal justices dissented, enables Alabama\u2019s Republican-dominated government to replace its current congressional map, which has two majority-Black districts, with a map that the US Supreme Court struck down in 2023. That map has just one majority-Black district.<\/p>\n

In her dissenting opinion, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that \u201cjust as Alabama doubled down on racial discrimination, the court today doubles down on chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn addition to being wrong on the merits, the court\u2019s decision inflicts two grave harms on the public,\u201d wrote Sotomayor. \u201cIt debases the democratic process by upending Alabama\u2019s entire election in the name of permitting Alabama to discriminate against Black Alabamians. It also corrodes the rule of law by rewarding Alabama\u2019s gamesmanship and outright defiance of court orders.\u201d<\/p>\n

The liberal justice noted that in order to switch to the map previously struck down by the high court, Alabama election officials \u201cwill have to reassign hundreds of thousands of voters across the state to new congressional districts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThree of Alabama\u2019s counties will be particularly hard hit because they are split across two congressional districts,\u201d Sotomayor noted. \u201cThese counties have about 600,000 registered voters between them (roughly 15% of the state\u2019s total number of registered voters).\u201d<\/p>\n

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, postponed US House primary elections in the wake of the Supreme Court\u2019s April decision in Louisiana v. Callais<\/em>, which severely narrowed the 1965 Voting Rights Act\u2019s protections against racial discrimination and paved the way for Alabama and other states to impose new maps ahead of the 2026 midterms.<\/p>\n

Read more Republicans just gave Trump a \u2018shock defeat\u2019 in a GOP stronghold<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Supreme Court\u2019s shameful ruling allowing Alabama to move forward with a gerrymander that was drawn with the explicit intent to dilute Black voting power\u2014as found by a panel of judges that included two Trump appointees\u2014is an absolute affront to the founding principles of our democracy, and wipes out whatever was left of the court\u2019s credibility,\u201d said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation. \u201cThis country deserves better, and we must continue to work toward federal legislation that not only bans partisan and racial gerrymandering but also ensures that our rights cannot be undermined by captured courts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ruling drew condemnation from the two Democrats in Alabama\u2019s US congressional delegation. Rep. Shomari Figures, who was elected to the US House under the independently drawn map that Alabama Republicans are working to replace, said in a statement that \u201cthe Supreme Court has now confirmed that there is no longer a Voting Rights Act in America, and states are essentially free to discriminate against minority voters with no consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a dangerous ruling that sets the state and this nation back decades,\u201d said Figures.<\/p>\n

Rep. Terri Sewell called the ruling \u201cjust the latest in a pattern of outrageous Supreme Court decisions that help Republicans desperately cling to power ahead of the midterm elections while diluting Black voices and erasing decades of hard-fought civil rights progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter how hard Alabama state officials may try, they will not succeed in silencing our voices,\u201d said Sewell. \u201cWe will not go back to the Jim Crow era. The fight for fair representation continues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more We are not better off now than we were two years ago \u2014not even close<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US Supreme Court late Tuesday gave Alabama a green light to use an aggressively gerrymandered congressional map that a lower court said was \u201ctainted by intentional race-based discrimination.\u201dThe unsigned decision, from which the high court\u2019s three liberal justices dissented, enables Alabama\u2019s Re…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n'Debases the Democratic process': Sotomayor pens scathing dissent in court's latest ruling - Next Address America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=946\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"'Debases the Democratic process': Sotomayor pens scathing dissent in court's latest ruling - 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