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On November 4, 2021, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed into law a new congressional map with redrawn boundaries for the state’s seven districts. The map included just one majority-Black district, just as it has since 1992, even though Black citizens now comprise over 27% of the state’s population.

In the United States Supreme Court case Allen v. Milligan, opponents of the state’s congressional redistricting map argued it violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because it dilutes the voting power of the state’s Black population. They contend the map limits Black voters’ ability to elect their preferred candidates to just one district by carving up the Black population in surrounding districts to ensure their preferences are drowned out by the white majority.

Abha Khanna, a guest lecturer in Professor Lisa Manheim’s Election Law class and partner at Elias Law Group in Seattle, represented the respondents in Allen and argued the case before the Court on October 4, 2022. When the Court ruled 5-4 in favor of Khanna’s clients on June 8, 2023, many considered the ruling a watershed moment for voting rights proponents throughout the country.

Follow along as Khanna, a renowned voting rights and redistricting attorney, provides first-hand insight on the historic case and what impact she thinks the ruling will have throughout the United States.

Read the Transcript

Abha Khanna: My name is Abha Khanna. I'm a partner at Elias Law Group and I work exclusively in voting rights and redistricting litigation. I was the lead trial lawyer for the Allen case in the court in Alabama. And we litigated it all the way up to the Supreme Court. And I argued the case at the Supreme Court as well.

ºìÌÒÊÓƵ: Can you provide a brief overview of the Allen v. Milligan Supreme Court case?

AK: Yeah, so the case is really about the Voting Rights Act, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prevents minority vote dilution. And we brought a claim against Alabama's congressional map — it's a seven-district map — and basically saying that the way it's drawn with one majority Black district violates the Voting Rights Act, because it dilutes the Black vote by cracking and packing Black voters in one district and cracking them in surrounding districts to ensure that their voting power is really limited to just that one district.

And notably, Alabama has had only one Black majority-minority district since 1992, which is when it was sued under the Voting Rights Act then to even get that district. And the reason why that's important in places like Alabama is because of a phenomenon we see called racially polarized voting, which is when Blacks and whites are voting so opposite, in such opposing manners, for different parties, different kinds of candidates, that if you do not provide a majority district, or something near a majority district, the white majority will consistently defeat the Black-preferred candidate. And we see that time and again in Alabama.

So, what we argued is that, given the geography and the demography and the racial politics and the racial polarized voting of Alabama, Black voters in Alabama are entitled to a second opportunity district, a second district in which they have an opportunity to elect their candidates of choice. And part of that discussion is to note that, you know, this is looking at the census data over the last several decades, the Black population in Alabama is 28% right now. And right now they have 14% of the congressional districts and representation in just 14% of the districts. That is not dispositive in this case, but it is a good tip off that something is amiss. And that's exactly the claim that we brought.

ºìÌÒÊÓƵ: Why did voters and organizations argue that Alabama's congressional map violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act?

AK: Well, our theory of the case was really that the Section 2 case law, when it comes to the Voting Rights Act, has been solid, as it has been for 40 years, that both Congress and the Supreme Court have repeatedly reaffirmed the standard for bringing these kinds of cases. And one most notable aspect of that standard is that plaintiffs are not required to prove racial animus or discriminatory intent. You don't have to go in and establish that there was racism behind the map, in the heart and mind of the map drawer because that is a near impossible standard for plaintiffs to meet.

What the Supreme Court and Congress have repeatedly reaffirmed over the last many decades is that a results-based claim where you can just prove that a law, in this case, a redistricting map, has diluted effects on a minority population, combined with a geographically compact minority group, racially polarized voting and a host of other racial, political, social factors of life in that jurisdiction, both historically and contemporarily, then there's an entitlement to an additional opportunity district.

So to us, and to me, the law is clear. And the facts were clear. And as the district court said, in our case, this case is not even a close one when it comes to applying the actual law that has been in place for nearly four decades.

ºìÌÒÊÓƵ: How did the Supreme Court rule in the case?

AK: The Supreme Court ruled in our favor. We won below saying that Black voters in Alabama are entitled to an additional opportunity district and the Supreme Court affirmed.

ºìÌÒÊÓƵ: What is a key takeaway from this ruling?

AK: I mean, I think the key takeaway here is that not just voters, not only minority voters, kind of, rely on the Voting Rights Act, that the statute means what it says, that the case law means what it says and has said for decades. I think it's a message to states. We've seen Alabama, kind of, try this gambit of like, well, I think I might have a more favorable Supreme Court. So why don't I try my hand at basically, kind of, getting out from under the burdens and obligations imposed by the Voting Rights Act? Why don't I see if I can change the law? Why don’t I see if I can change the standard and make it harder for Voting Right Act plaintiffs to win or make the Voting Rights Act go away altogether?

And I think what the Court did sends the message of no, the law is what it is, you need to follow it in the first instance. And this idea that there's going to be some wiggle room to get out from under it to allow for broader discrimination or maybe present more subtle and more nuanced forms of discrimination, it's not going to be countenanced by the law of the Voting Rights Act, which is a foundational piece of civil rights legislation that has, I think, brought our country to as far as it has come and will continue to carry our country forward when it comes to racial equality and bridging the massive gap that still exist when it comes to access to the political process.

ºìÌÒÊÓƵ: How do you think this case will impact voting rights elsewhere in the United States?

AK: Well, I think it's going to have a very immediate impact in states where, in fact, we are currently litigating. We have pending lawsuits under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in Georgia, in Louisiana and in Texas. And those are just the cases that our team is bringing, some of which have already proceeded through preliminary injunction. And in Louisiana, for instance, we actually won on preliminary injunction. And that case was stayed pending resolution of the Alabama case.

So, I think it's going to have a very immediate effect in cases such as that, but there are other pending cases, not just at the congressional level, at the state legislative level, at the city council level, at the county council level, at the school board level, where I think that any defendants who have been basically relying on the idea and the hope that perhaps the law would change in a way that's favorable for jurisdictions to pass discriminatory maps, they now know nope. The law is what it is. And hopefully those cases will go forward. It doesn't mean that every Voting Rights Act case is going to win. It is an exceedingly high standard and difficult standard to meet when it comes to making the Voting Rights Act claim. And this was a hard-fought case for sure. But it does mean that all of the parties and the courts can go forward with a clear understanding of what that standard is and where that bar is.