Allen v. Milligan

Majority reasoning

The Court held that the District Court correctly applied the Gingles framework, finding that plaintiffs' illustrative maps showed a second reasonably configured majority-Black district was possible, that Black voters are politically cohesive, and that white bloc voting regularly defeats Black-preferred candidates. The majority rejected Alabama's race-neutral benchmark theory, explaining that Section 2 requires a totality-of-circumstances analysis, not a single comparison to computer-generated maps, and that such maps do not accurately reflect real districting processes or provide a workable legal standard given the astronomical number of possible maps. The Court also found that its precedents, including Shaw v. Reno and Miller v. Johnson, already impose meaningful constraints against requiring racial proportionality, so Alabama's fear of forced proportional representation was unfounded. Responding to the dissent's argument that the plaintiffs' maps improperly used race as a predominant factor, the majority distinguished between being "aware" of race and being "motivated" by it, finding the illustrative maps gave equal weight to traditional districting criteria and did not have race as the overriding factor. The Court also rejected Alabama's argument that Section 2 does not apply to single-member districting or that it exceeds Congress's constitutional enforcement authority, citing four decades of unbroken precedent applying Section 2 to districting cases.

Dissent reasoning

Justice Thomas, joined in full by Justice Gorsuch and in part by Justices Barrett and Alito, argued that Section 2 should not apply to single-member districting at all because the statute's text focuses only on ballot access and vote counting, not on district-line drawing. He argued that even if Section 2 does apply, any vote-dilution claim requires a race-neutral benchmark, and the plaintiffs' illustrative maps were themselves racial gerrymanders because they treated creating two majority-Black districts as a "non-negotiable" goal, meaning race predominated in their design. Thomas contended that the District Court's real benchmark was proportional representation—giving Black Alabamians, who are about two-sevenths of the population, roughly two-sevenths of congressional seats—which the statute explicitly disclaims and which raises serious constitutional problems under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. He concluded that Section 2 as applied here cannot be reconciled with the Constitution's prohibition on race-based governmental action and would hold the statute unconstitutional as applied or reinterpret it to require a genuinely race-neutral benchmark. Justice Alito, joined by Justice Gorsuch, wrote separately arguing that the Gingles framework's first precondition should require plaintiffs to prove their illustrative maps were created without race predominating, using an "old-school" approach where mapmakers or their computer programs are scrutinized for whether race was the predominant factor, and that the District Court failed to apply this standard because it treated the goal of achieving two majority-Black districts as a legitimate starting point rather than evidence of racial predominance.