Merrill v. Milligan
The Supreme Court blocked a lower court's order that would have required Alabama to redraw its congressional maps before the 2022 elections, allowing the state to proceed with maps a federal court had found likely violated federal voting rights law.
The order is temporary and does not decide whether Alabama's maps are lawful — the Court accepted the case for full merits review — but it drew sharp dissents accusing the majority of using its emergency docket to signal changes in voting rights law before any full argument.
How it got here: A three-judge federal district court issued preliminary injunctions ordering Alabama to redraw its congressional maps; Alabama applied to Justice Thomas for an emergency stay, which was referred to the full Court.
The Case in Depth
What happened
After the 2020 census, Alabama drew congressional districts that created only one majority-Black district out of seven, even though Black residents make up 27% of the state's population. Groups of Black voters and civil rights plaintiffs sued, arguing the maps unlawfully diluted Black voting power. A three-judge federal court held a seven-day evidentiary hearing, reviewed over 1,000 pages of briefing, and concluded the maps substantially likely violated federal voting rights law — ordering Alabama to produce a new map within weeks.
The question before the Court
Could a federal court order Alabama to redraw its congressional district map — adding a second majority-Black district — before the 2022 primary elections began?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Court temporarily blocked the lower court's order, allowing Alabama to use its contested congressional maps in the 2022 elections while the merits appeal proceeded through normal channels.
The Court applied the Purcell principle, which generally bars federal courts from changing state election rules when an election is close at hand. Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence framed that principle as a heightened — not absolute — standard: challengers must show the merits are entirely clear in their favor and that implementing the changes is feasible without significant disruption. The Court found neither requirement was met here: the legal question about what the Voting Rights Act demands was genuinely unsettled, and completely redrawing maps weeks before a primary would cause serious confusion. The order expressly does not decide whether Alabama's maps are lawful.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Black voters in Alabama cast their 2022 congressional ballots under the maps a federal court found likely illegal. Any legal remedy will apply only to future elections. The decision also reignited a national debate about the Court's use of its emergency docket — often called the "shadow docket" — to resolve high-stakes legal disputes without full briefing or argument.
What changes now
Alabama used its existing congressional maps for the 2022 elections. The Supreme Court accepted the underlying cases for full merits review — one as a direct appeal, the other as a certiorari case — with full briefing, oral argument, and a decision expected in a later term. If the challengers win on the merits, any remedial maps would apply to congressional elections after 2022, not the elections that already took place under the stayed injunction.
What this does not decide
The order expressly does not decide whether Alabama's congressional maps violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. It does not resolve what the Voting Rights Act requires of states drawing majority-minority districts, and it does not address whether race-blind computer simulations must be used to satisfy the legal standard for vote-dilution claims.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Kavanaugh
“That principle—known as the Purcell principle—reflects a bedrock tenet of election law: When an election is close at hand, the rules of the road must be clear and settled.”Justice Kavanaugh explains the core rationale for blocking last-minute federal court changes to state election rules.
Justice Kavanaugh wrote to explain why the Purcell principle — which disfavors last-minute federal court changes to state election laws — required staying the lower court's order. He argued the principle is not absolute but creates a heightened standard that challengers here could not meet because the merits are genuinely unsettled and implementing a full map redraw before the imminent primary elections would be extremely disruptive. He stressed that the stay does not signal any view on the ultimate merits.
Dissent — Justice Roberts
Chief Justice Roberts would have accepted the cases for full review but denied the stay. In his view, the district court correctly applied existing Voting Rights Act precedent under Thornburg v. Gingles with no apparent errors, and its analysis should therefore govern the 2022 elections. He agreed the Court should clarify the significant uncertainty and disagreement that has grown up around that precedent — but on a full merits docket, not by blocking a correct lower court ruling.
Dissent — Justice Kagan
Justice Kagan argued the stay was wrong on both the merits and the equities. The district court correctly applied long-standing Voting Rights Act doctrine, and Alabama's stay application could only succeed if the Court adopted a novel legal rule — requiring challengers to use race-blind computer simulations — that has never appeared in any prior decision. She also contended the Purcell principle did not apply because the general election was nine months away and the state had all it needed to redraw its map quickly. She accused the majority of using the shadow docket to prejudge a change in the law without full briefing or argument, doing a disservice to Black Alabamians whose voting power the law clearly protects.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied the Purcell principle — an election-law rule (named for Purcell v. Gonzalez, a 2006 per curiam decision) holding that federal courts should ordinarily not enjoin a state's election laws in the period close to an election, because last-minute judicial changes create confusion and disruption for candidates, officials, and voters.
- Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence clarified that the Purcell principle is best understood not as an absolute ban but as a heightened standard that can theoretically be overcome — but only if a challenger shows at least four things: the underlying merits are entirely clearcut in their favor, they would suffer irreparable harm, they did not unduly delay filing suit, and the required changes are feasible without significant cost, confusion, or hardship.
- On the merits prong, the Court found the core legal question — whether Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act requires Alabama to draw a second majority-Black congressional district — was far from clearcut. The concurrence noted that the law in this area is 'notoriously unclear and confusing,' with significant disagreement among courts and commentators about what plaintiffs must prove.
- On the feasibility prong, the Court found that completely redrawing seven congressional districts within weeks before primary season — with candidate filing deadlines imminent and absentee voting beginning March 30 — would impose serious logistical burdens on state and local election officials, candidates, and voters that had not been overcome.
- Because Alabama's challengers could not satisfy at least two of the four prerequisites even under a more flexible version of the Purcell standard, the Court stayed the lower court's injunction for the 2022 elections, leaving the merits to be decided after full briefing and oral argument.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Purcell v. Gonzalez (549 U. S. 1)
Reaffirmed as the governing principle barring last-minute federal court injunctions of state election laws.