LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The United States Supreme Court issued an order Monday that sends a case regarding Arkansas's congressional redistricting map back to a lower federal court following the high court's ruling in Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP.
The Supreme Court vacated the ruling by a three-judge federal panel that kept the map in place and remanded the case to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas "for further consideration."
The case against the map drawn by Republican officials in 2021 alleges that it dilutes the votes of Black people and makes it more difficult for voters to choose who they elect.
The map that is being questioned splits Pulaski County, Arkansas's most populated county, into three separate U.S. House districts. Around 50% of the county identifies as White while 38% identifies as Black and 6% as Hispanic or Latino, according to the latest Census data.
In the South Carolina case, a 6-3 decision by the court on May 23 ruled that Republican officials didn't discriminate against Black voters when redrawing the state's First Congressional District. The dissenting liberal justices claimed that the ruling would "impede racial gerrymandering cases generally."
That same ruling sent the case to a lower court to reexamine the allegations that South Carolina's 2021 map diluted the votes of Black people.