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Page Number: 2.0

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ALLEN v. MILLIGAN 

Syllabus 

  In 1992, §2 litigation challenging the State of Alabama’s then-exist-
ing districting map resulted in the State’s first majority-black district 
and, subsequently, the State’s first black Representative since 1877.  
Alabama’s congressional map has remained remarkably similar since 
that litigation.  Following the 2020 decennial census, a group of plain-
tiffs led by Alabama legislator Bobby Singleton sued the State, arguing 
that the State’s population growth rendered the existing congressional 
map  malapportioned  and  racially  gerrymandered  in  violation  of  the 
Equal  Protection  Clause.    While  litigation  was  proceeding,  the  Ala-
bama Legislature’s Committee on Reapportionment drew a new dis-
tricting map that would reflect the distribution of the prior decade’s 
population growth across the State.  The resulting map largely resem-
bled the 2011 map on which it was based and similarly produced only 
one  district  in  which  black  voters  constituted  a  majority.    That  new 
map was signed into law as HB1.   
  Three groups of Alabama citizens brought suit seeking to stop Ala-
bama’s Secretary of State from conducting congressional elections un-
der HB1.  One group (Caster plaintiffs) challenged HB1 as invalid un-
der §2.  Another group (Milligan plaintiffs) brought claims under §2 
and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.  And 
a third group (the Singleton plaintiffs) amended the complaint in their 
ongoing litigation to challenge HB1 as a racial gerrymander under the 
Equal Protection Clause.  A three-judge District Court was convened, 
and the Singleton and Milligan actions were consolidated before that 
District  Court  for  purposes  of  preliminary  injunction  proceedings, 
while  Caster  proceeded  before  one  of  the  judges  on  a  parallel  track.  
After an extensive hearing, the District Court concluded in a 227-page 
opinion  that  the  question  whether  HB1  likely  violated  §2  was  not 
“close.”  The Court preliminarily enjoined Alabama from using HB1 in 
forthcoming elections.  The same relief was ordered in Caster. 

Held: The  Court  affirms  the District  Court’s  determination  that  plain-
tiffs  demonstrated  a  reasonable  likelihood  of  success  on  their  claim 
that HB1 violates §2.  Pp. 9–22, 25–34. 

(a) The District Court faithfully applied this Court’s precedents in 

concluding that HB1 likely violates §2.  Pp. 9–15. 

(1) This  Court  first  addressed  the  1982  amendments  to  §2  in 
Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, and has for the last 37 years eval-
uated §2 claims using the Gingles framework.  Gingles described the 
“essence of a §2 claim” as when “a certain electoral law, practice, or 
structure  interacts  with  social  and  historical  conditions  to  cause  an 
inequality in the opportunities enjoyed by black and white voters.”  Id., 
at 47.  That occurs where an “electoral structure operates to minimize 
or cancel out” minority voters’ “ability to elect their preferred candi-
dates.”  Id., at 48.  Such a risk is greatest “where minority and majority