Two Hong Kong women convicted of money laundering have been jailed for over three years for transporting over HK$280 million cash from mainland China to Hong Kong between 2018 and 2019.

Luo Xiaoping was sentenced to four years and ten months at the District Court, while Xiang Yurong was jailed for three years, local media reported.

The two were convicted after a trial, in which they pleaded not guilty to a total of four counts of money laundering.

Luo was accused of bringing cash through border checkpoints, with over 100 instances during which she carried more than HK$1 million per trip, the court heard. She was accused of smuggling around HK$270 million cash.

Xiang brought money into Hong Kong an average of 10 times per month during the period of the offence, carrying around 200,000 to 300,000 RMB each time. She transported cash to Hong Kong as many as three times in a single day.

In total, the two of them handled over HK$280 million of illicit cash, the court heard.

District Court Deputy Judge Lily Wong said she accepted the fact that Xiang and Luo were just “mules,” but their offence inevitably brought a negative impact on Hong Kong and mainland China’s financial systems.

The two were arrested in September 2019, but were only charged in April 2023.

The defense argued that there was a delay in prosecution. They said that customs officers could have stopped Luo much earlier, yet they only took action after she had successfully transported cash into Hong Kong numerous times.

However, Judge Wong disagreed with this argument, describing Luo as “acting with a gambler’s mindset” and committing the crimes out of pure greed, Ming Pao reported.

According to the Organized and Serious Crimes Ordinance, “dealing with property known or believed to represent proceeds of indictable offence,” or “money laundering,” is punishable by a maximum penalty up to 14 years’ imprisonment and a fine of HK$5 million.

Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department said in a statement on Thursday that this is the first money laundering conviction involving travellers transporting large amount of cash-related items across the border since the Cross-boundary Movement of Physical Currency and Bearer Negotiable Instruments Ordinance came into effect in July 2018.

Under the ordinance, anyone carrying over HK$120,000 in cash into Hong Kong must declare the sum to customs officers.

Allen v. Milligan, an Alabama redistricting case that is now before the Supreme Court for the third time, is a face-palm, wrapped in a head-desk, wrapped in some of the most incompetent legislative draftsmanship that has ever been presented to the justices. If Alabama Republicans have any sense, they will fire all of their lawyers.

About a month ago, the Supreme Court decided Louisiana v. Callais, gutting the federal Voting Rights Act’s safeguards against legislative maps that lock voters of color out of power in the process. Callais effectively repealed a 1982 amendment to the VRA, which prohibited many state laws that have a negative impact of nonwhite voters, even if those laws were not drawn with racist intent.

After Callais, a plaintiff challenging a state’s legislative maps on racial grounds may only prevail “when the circumstances give rise to a strong inference that intentional discrimination occurred.”

As a practical matter, this is a very difficult bar for voting rights plaintiffs to overcome. Lawyers and judges are not mind readers. And state lawmakers normally aren’t foolish enough to state openly that they drew a particular map in a particular way because they wanted to maximize white power and minimize the voting power of nonwhite voters.

And yet, Alabama’s Republican-controlled legislature managed to enact congressional redistricting legislation that openly praises the European American character of much of the state.

Allen turns on congressional maps that the state enacted in a 2023 law, but which have never actually been used in an election. Much of the case turns on the law’s disparate treatment of two regions in the state: the Gulf Coast region of Alabama, and the state’s Black Belt.

While the Black Belt is actually named after the dark-colored soil in that region, it has a high African American population because many enslaved people were brought to the Black Belt prior to the Civil War. The Gulf Coast region, meanwhile, is predominantly white. As a lower court decision that struck down the 2023 maps explains, those maps keep “the Gulf Coast whole,” while simultaneously splitting the Black Belt in a way that shunts many of its Black voters into a majority-white district.

The mere fact that Alabama cracked up the Black Belt while keeping the Gulf Coast intact does not endanger its maps, at least under Callais. The decision is very favorable to gerrymandering, and permits states to draw maps that diminish Black representation so long as the state claims that it is doing so to dilute the votes of Democrats.

But here’s the rub: The 2023 law doesn’t just preserve the white-majority Gulf Coast region intact; it also praises the “shared culture” of that region which stems “from its French and Spanish colonial heritage.” France and Spain, of course, are European countries made up predominantly of white people.

The state legislature, in other words, didn’t just give the Gulf Coast more favorable treatment than it did the Black Belt. It explicitly referenced the Gulf Coast’s shared European culture when it did so. That sure gives rise to a strong inference that intentional discrimination occurred!

Will that be enough to persuade this Supreme Court to rule against Alabama’s maps? Who knows? The Court’s most recent gerrymandering decisions appear designed to permit states to draw whatever maps they want, without any federal judicial oversight whatsoever. And a decision in favor of Alabama’s 2023 maps would also benefit the Republican Party.

Six of the Supreme Court’s nine seats are held by Republicans.

But, even after Callais, one of the few things that states should not be allowed to do is draw maps for the explicit purpose of favoring European Americans, while simultaneously disfavoring African Americans. And yet Alabama’s maps may not be able to clear even this very low bar.

A Hong Kong court has upheld the conviction and sentence of a journalist and former head of a press union for obstructing police while reporting.

Veteran journalist Ronson Chan began serving his five-day sentence on Friday after Deputy High Court Judge Lily Wong upheld a lower court’s conviction over an incident in September 2022, when Chan refused to show his ID card to a police officer while reporting on a homeowners’ meeting.

In her written judgment, which was not read out in court on Friday, Wong shot down Chan’s argument that the police officer’s demand was unlawful and found that the journalist had obstructed the police by wilfully delaying the presentation of his identification.

According to case details, Chan was covering the meeting at MacPherson Stadium in Mong Kok, where he was stopped by a plainclothes police officer who said he was acting “suspiciously” and asked to see his identification card.

He was arrested on suspicion of obstructing a police officer after allegedly failing to comply with demands to produce his ID card despite multiple warnings.

At trial, Chan said that he refused to present his identification due to privacy concerns, referring to an incident during the 2019 protests when a police officer showed his ID card in front of his camera, which was live-streamed to thousands of viewers.

The West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts found Chan guilty in September 2023, a year after he was arrested.

The trial judge, Leung Ka-kie, said Chan deliberately stopped the police officer from carrying out her duties and that his persistent questioning of officers when they asked for his identification was “reckless and unreasonable.”

‘Social climate’

Noting online calls to protest at the homeowners’ meeting, Judge Wong also concurred with the trial judge’s ruling that the police officers were justified in their actions to maintain public order.

“As the Magistrate ruled… given the social climate at the time, observing the rules and maintaining order in public places in Hong Kong was both important and commendable,” Judge Wong wrote.

Chan repeatedly questioned the officers and ignored warnings to calm down, and only offered an opaque cardholder, which constituted wilful obstruction, the judge added.

Chan’s barrister, Steven Kwan, told the court that he would seek a certificate from the appellate court to take the journalist’s appeal to the city’s apex court, but did not submit a bail application.

With the certificate, Chan would be able to seek permission for a final chance to appeal his conviction and sentence.

Reactions from press groups

Chan, who was elected as chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) in June 2021, stepped down at the end of his term in June 2024, citing increasing pressure against him and the press union.

In a statement issued on Friday, the HKJA expressed “deep regret” over the court’s decision and raised concerns about the ruling’s impact on journalists’ work.

“Citing the exercise of constitutionally protected fundamental rights as grounds for a search is legally untenable, and today’s ruling failed to directly address this contradiction,” the HKJA said.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said on Friday that it “is outraged by the imprisonment of Ronson Chan.”

“The verdict sets a dangerous precedent, effectively giving the police a free hand and further eroding already dismantled press freedoms,” said Aleksandra Bielakowska, advocacy manager of RSF Asia Pacific.

In April, the 70th month since Beijing imposed the national security law, the Hong Kong government applied to the court to seize assets belonging to Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

On National Education Day, a top Chinese official delivered a warning about those who “politicised” the deadly Tai Po fire and tried to “stir up chaos” in the city.

Gov’t seeks to seize Jimmy Lai’s assets

The Hong Kong government filed an application with the High Court on April 2 to seize “offence-related” properties owned by jailed pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai on national security grounds.

In a statement issued the same day, the government mentioned Lai’s earlier convictions under the Beijing-imposed national security law. It said the High Court had found that he was the “mastermind and driving force behind the case, consciously using Apple Daily and his personal influence” to undermine local and Beijing authorities.

In a writ dated April 2, the secretary for justice listed HK$127 million in assets to be “forfeited” to the authorities.

The assets include credit balances in bank accounts belonging to or linked to the Apple Daily founder.

Fifteen bank accounts under Lai’s name – 10 with HSBC, two with Hang Seng Bank and three with Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank – have over HK$32 million.

The government is also seeking to seize bank accounts belonging to 17 companies linked to Lai. It is also demanding that Lai give up shares in 17 companies, some of which overlap with the 17 firms whose assets the government is seeking to seize.

Among the companies whose assets and shares the government wants to seize are Dico Consultants Ltd, which has over HK$404,302 in its HSBC account, and Lai’s Hotel Properties Ltd, which has over HK$3.1 million in its four HSBC accounts.

Lai has been summoned to the High Court on July 8 to hear the government’s application. The case will be presided over by Esther Toh, one of the three judges who heard his national security trial.

The move to seize Lai’s assets came after the government designated three companies linked to Lai’s now-defunct Apple Daily tabloid “prohibited organisations” in late March and removed them from the corporate registry. Police cordoned off the Apple Daily building in Tseung Kwan O a day later.

The three firms were tried and convicted alongside the Apple Daily founder in his high-profile national security case. Lai was sentenced to 20 years behind bars in early February, while the companies were each fined over HK$3 million.

Political commentator appears in court

A Hong Kong political commentator charged with disclosing details of a national security investigation appeared at the District Court on April 28.

Wong Kwok-ngon, known by his pen name Wong On-yin, has been detained since his arrest in December for allegedly divulging in a YouTube video details of enquiries made by police during a national security investigation.

Judge Stanley Chan said the pre-trial review would take place behind closed doors on August 11, and the trial would begin on October 9.

Wong’s offence falls under the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, a homegrown security law known as Article 23. It was added to the ordinance in May as part of subsidiary legislation, and Wong is the first to be charged under the new law.

He is also charged with sedition over videos posted on YouTube between January 3 and December 6 last year. He plans to plead not guilty to both charges.

The defendant, who continues to represent himself, told the court he had dropped his legal aid application.

Asked by the judge whether he had legal knowledge for self-defence, Wong said he had “three law degrees” and was confident of handling the case.

Nat. security clauses for restaurant licences

Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan said in early April that all Hong Kong restaurant licences would include national security clauses from September.

Tse made the remarks on April 7, nearly a year after the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) introduced the provisions for restaurant licence renewals in May.

“With restaurants renewing their licences gradually, we expect that by September this year, all restaurant licences will contain the clauses,” Tse told reporters, according to RTHK.

Retiree jailed over seditious Facebook posts

A Hong Kong man was jailed for a year under the city’s homegrown national security law after pleading guilty to making seditious remarks on Facebook, including comments supporting Hong Kong’s and Taiwan’s independence.

Raymond Chong pleaded guilty before national security judge Victor So at West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts on April 14 to one count of knowingly publishing publications with a seditious intention – an offence under the city’s local security law, also known as Article 23.

The magistrate handed Chong, a retiree in his early 60s, an 18-month sentence but discounted it by six months after considering his guilty plea.

Chong was accused of making 53 seditious social media posts between March 2024 and November 2025, local media reported.

The posts had wording such as “dissolving the Chinese Communist Party is the most important thing” and “Hong Kong independence is within sight.”

The defendant posted on a public Facebook page called “Holy Raymond,” which features the Chinese phrase “Heaven will destroy the Chinese Communist Party, God bless Hong Kong” as its profile picture.

During mitigation ahead of sentencing, his lawyer argued that Chong was a Falun Gong believer who had come to hate the Chinese Communist Party because of false information that the CCP engaged in live organ harvesting.

Beijing official warned of ‘politicising’ Tai Po fire

China’s top official in charge of Hong Kong affairs warned of some people who “politicised” the deadly Tai Po fire and tried to use the disaster to “stir up chaos” in Hong Kong.

Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, delivered his remarks on April 15 via a recorded video shown at a National Security Education Day ceremony.

In his speech, Xia mentioned the massive fire that broke out at Wang Fuk Court, a government-subsidised housing estate in Tai Po, on November 26, killing 168 people.

“After the Tai Po fire, some malicious people politicised the tragedy, attempting to use the disaster as a means to disrupt Hong Kong,” Xia said in Mandarin, without giving further details.

“Once again, it reminds us that along Hong Kong’s path toward prosperity under good governance, there will be various risks and challenges.”

Speaking at the same event, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee also warned that some people were “using the disaster to stir up chaos” and “to incite hatred” in Hong Kong.

“Only through the government’s swift action and decisive law enforcement has the situation been able to return to normal,” Lee said in Mandarin.

French journalist denied entry to city

A French journalist was denied entry to Hong Kong in November, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in late April, accusing the city’s authorities of “weaponising visas” against foreign media workers.

Antoine Vedeilhe, who was shooting a documentary for French public broadcaster France Télévisions, was questioned upon arrival at Hong Kong International Airport on November 2 last year, RSF said in a statement on April 24.

He was detained for three hours before being deported without being given a reason, it added.

The press freedom NGO said Vedeilhe was the 13th foreign media worker who had been denied entry or a visa by the city’s authorities following Beijing’s imposition of the national security law in 2020.

“In the journalist’s view, his detention was a reprisal for his work on a documentary examining Beijing’s grip on Hong Kong,” RSF said.

Another cameraman for the documentary was able to enter the city, RSF said, but he was followed by “unidentified individuals that he suspects were Hong Kong’s national security police.”

“In the following days, there was a hacking attempt on Vedeilhe’s private email account and his sources in the documentary were harassed by the national security police,” the NGO said.

In an emailed reply to HKFP’s enquiries, the Hong Kong government said it “strongly condemns the smearing remarks and distorted narratives by” RSF.

Prosecution and arrests figures

As of April 1, a total of 394 people have been arrested for “cases involving suspected acts or activities that endanger national security” since Beijing’s national security law came into effect, according to the Security Bureau. That figure includes those arrested under Article 23 and for other offences.

Of the 208 people and five companies that have so far been charged, 180 people and four companies have been convicted or are awaiting sentencing.

In total, 100 people and four companies have been charged under Beijing’s national security law, with 79 persons and three companies convicted. Thirteen people have been charged under Article 23, 10 of whom have been convicted.

ALOR SETAR, June 7 — Kedah Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor is not giving up the state’s decision to stop issuing and renewing number-betting outlet licences, despite losing the case at the Court of Appeal.

He said the state will pursue the legal battle all the way to the Federal Court, The Star reported today.

“We are not giving up and will bring this case to the highest court. We have already started the process to go to the Federal Court,” he was quoted as saying.

Sanusi said the state had anticipated the outcome, although the full written judgment was only recently released.

On June 2, the Court of Appeal released its written grounds for a December ruling that Kedah could not impose a blanket ban on lottery and betting businesses solely on policy objections to gambling.

The majority decision held that state powers were confined to matters under the Federal Constitution’s Ninth Schedule and the Local Government Act.

The court said licensing decisions must be tied to premises conditions such as safety, sanitation and public nuisance, not general opposition to gambling activities.

It also noted that some operators had been operating at the same premises for decades.

The Federal Court is scheduled to hear Kedah’s application for leave to appeal on August 12.

Kedah’s dispute began after Sanusi announced in November 2021 that the state would stop issuing and renewing gambling outlet licences.

The decision was challenged by gambling and lottery operators, leading to a 2024 High Court ruling that the ban was unlawful, which was later upheld by the Court of Appeal in December 2025.

KUALA LUMPUR, June 9 — Police have arrested 15 men after raiding an illegal cockfighting activity at a coastal hut near the Miri Golf Club area on Thursday afternoon.

The 3.30pm raid was carried out by officers from the Miri district police headquarters following a tip-off on the activity at the location, according to a report by BuletinTV3.

Miri police chief Asst Comm Mohd Farhan Lee Abdullah confirmed that all those detained were locals aged between 28 and 74.

He said various items believed to have been used in the activity were seized during the raid, along with live and dead roosters found at the scene.

“Initial investigations found that all suspects admitted they were at the location for cockfighting purposes,” he said in a statement.

Police have completed investigation papers and all suspects were charged at the Miri Magistrates’ Court last Friday under Section 73(1)(g) of the Veterinary Public Health Ordinance 1999.

If convicted, they face a maximum fine of RM2,000 or up to six months’ jail, or both.

The court set June 12 for mention.

All accused were allowed bail of RM600 each with one local surety.

BANGKOK, June 6 — A Thai court has sentenced a ride-hailing driver to one month in jail and fined him 5,000 baht (RM645) for assaulting a Japanese passenger following a dispute during a trip in Bangkok.

The incident occurred near the busy Asok intersection on Monday and involved a 23-year-old driver and a 52-year-old Japanese passenger travelling in a Bolt vehicle, The Bangkok Post reported today.

The passenger admitted swearing at the driver and kicking the driver's seat during an argument over the fare and traffic conditions.

The driver later ordered the passenger out of the vehicle before assaulting him.

The Criminal Court found the driver guilty of causing bodily harm and related traffic offences.

The driver had earlier settled separate administrative charges with a 3,000-baht (RM387) fine.

The court suspended the one-month jail sentence for one year.

BRUSSELS, June 3 — Meta secured a partial victory today over the EU’s powers to regulate tech giants, as a top court ruled the bloc was wrong to slap tough rules on its Facebook Marketplace platform — but threw out an appeal over Messenger.

The US giant filed a challenge with the EU’s General Court in Luxembourg over both platforms’ designation under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), one of several digital laws facing fierce criticism from tech giants and US President Donald Trump’s administration.

Meta faces strict rules and obligations after being designated a so-called “gatekeeper” under the DMA, and its Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp apps are subject to extra scrutiny as “core platform services”.

In its challenge, Meta argued that Messenger and Marketplace were an extension of Facebook, and should not face stringent obligations of their own.

“By its judgment today, the General Court of the European Union annuls the decision designating Meta as a gatekeeper as regards Marketplace, while maintaining Meta’s designation for its interpersonal communications service Messenger,” the court said in a statement.

In practice, the European Commission had agreed in April last year to lift the designation of Marketplace, but Meta nonetheless welcomed the court decision — seen as a test of the EU’s powers to regulate the sector.

The Marketplace ruling “confirms that it should not have been designated in the first place”, a Meta spokesperson said.

“We are reviewing the court’s finding on Messenger and will consider our options,” they said.

In its challenge, Meta argued that Messenger and Marketplace were an extension of Facebook, and should not face stringent obligations of their own. — AFP pic

‘Erred in law’ 

The DMA comes with a list of do’s and don’ts for the world’s biggest digital platforms in an attempt to keep them in check and create an open online space.

Concerning the imposition of tougher rules on Marketplace, the court found the European Commission had “erred in law” on several counts.

It faulted the EU executive for failing to take into account changes made to the platform in mid-2023, and more broadly said its case “lacks sufficient reasoning”.

Regarding Messenger, however, the court agreed with the commission that it was “distinct from the Facebook social network”, noting that it was “offered by means of standalone applications” and that “Meta promotes tools that are specific to that service”.

The EU court in 2024 ruled against a similar bid by TikTok to challenge its DMA designation, a decision the company has appealed.

Alongside Meta and TikTok’s owner ByteDance, the other “gatekeepers” are Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Booking and Microsoft.

The EU last year imposed its first fines for breaking the DMA rule, hitting Meta and Apple with penalties of €200 million (RM923 million) and €500 million respectively.

The fines have given rise to accusations by Washington that the EU is deliberately targeting American companies, which Brussels denies. — AFP

KUALA LUMPUR, June 8 — The Sessions Court issued a third-party notice today to anyone wishing to challenge the forfeiture of jewellery seized from Salwani Anuar @ Kamaruddin, wife of former Malaysian Army chief Tan Sri Muhammad Hafizuddeain Jantan.

Judge Azura Alwi set July 31 for the hearing of any claims from individuals with an interest in the jewellery. If no third party comes forward, the assets will be forfeited to the government.

The third-party notice was issued under Section 41(2) of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act 2009 after the court allowed an application by deputy public prosecutor Mahadi Abdul Jumaat.

Lawyer Muhammad Kausar Mohd Khairi, representing Salwani, 27, confirmed that his client had no objection to the application.

According to the notice filed on May 4, the prosecution is seeking forfeiture to the government of a 29.17-gramme necklace, a 9.53-gramme bracelet, a pair of earrings weighing 6.61 grammes, and a Swarovski ring.

The movable assets were seized under Subsection 41(1) of the MACC Act 2009 and are currently in the custody of the MACC.

On January 22, Salwani was charged with four counts of receiving money from illegal activities, amounting to RM50,000, RM7,000, RM10,000 and RM10,000.

The money was allegedly deposited into a company bank account at a bank in Damansara Heights, Wisma UOA II here, between November 24, 2024, and November 25, 2025.

The charges were filed under Subsection 4(1)(b) of the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act, which is punishable by imprisonment for up to 15 years and a fine of not less than 5 times the value of the illicit proceeds or RM5 million, whichever is higher.

Salwani was also charged at the Kuala Terengganu Sessions Court on January 26 with receiving RM5,000, also proceeds from illegal activities, allegedly deposited into her account at a bank in Jertih, near Besut, on January 16, 2025.

That case has since been transferred to the Sessions Court here to be tried jointly. — Bernama

Here’s a familiar story. On Tuesday night, the Supreme Court handed down a decision that will almost certainly give the Republican Party an additional seat in the US House of Representatives. Not all of the justices disclosed how they voted, but the decision appears to have come down 6-3 along partisan lines — that is, the six Republican justices voted to give the GOP another House seat, while the Court’s three Democrats dissented.

In fairness, the GOP justices’ most recent decision in Allen v. Milligan fits a broader pattern in this Supreme Court’s gerrymandering cases that can be explained without accusing those Republican justices of deciding election cases solely on the basis of partisanship. The Court has spent the past seven years dismantling all federal safeguards against gerrymandering. 

Allen fits this pattern. On its face, the Republican justices’ brief opinion in the case is just the next iterative step toward a legal regime where states can draw maps however they want, regardless of whether those maps are drawn to favor one political party, or whether they are drawn to lock nonwhite voters out of power.

But the Republican justices’ new decision stands out because, while the Allen opinion is consistent with the Court’s broader trend toward redistricting anarchy, its actual legal arguments are inconsistent with things the same justices said as recently as one month ago. The decision is also inconsistent with previous orders that the Court’s Republican majority handed down in the Allen case itself.

If you want the full rundown of all of these inconsistencies, go read Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent in this most recent decision. There are so many of them that it is hard to escape the conclusion that the Court’s Republicans aren’t being honest about their true motivations. The simplest explanation for Tuesday night’s decision is that the Court’s Republican majority is bending the rules because they want the Republican Party to hold a majority in the House.

The decision in Allen breaks a rule that the Supreme Court announced one month ago

At the end of April, the Court’s Republican majority handed down Louisiana v. Callais, which completed a project that at least one member of that majority began more than four decades ago.

In 1982, President Ronald Reagan signed legislation expanding the Voting Rights Act, the federal law barring race discrimination in elections. Among other things, the 1982 amendment established that many state election laws that have a negative impact on nonwhite voters are illegal, even if the plaintiff challenging that law cannot prove that the law was enacted with racist intent. 

When this bill was being debated in Congress, however, there was a conservative faction within the Reagan administration that opposed it, and which unsuccessfully urged Reagan to veto it. Future Chief Justice John Roberts was a member of this faction, and as a fairly junior lawyer wound up doing much of the granular work that is often assigned to young attorneys. Among other things, Roberts wrote about two dozen memos opposing the 1982 amendment, and he drafted speeches and talking points for senior lawyers who also opposed it.

Although Roberts’ faction failed in 1982, Roberts held onto his grudge against the Reagan amendments to the VRA, and his faction eventually took over the Republican Party. All six of the Court’s Republicans joined Callais, which repealed the 1982 amendment and imposed a new rule requiring voting rights plaintiffs challenging a gerrymandered map to show that state lawmakers acted with racist intent.

Under Callais, a plaintiff bringing such a challenge may only prevail “when the circumstances give rise to a strong inference that intentional discrimination occurred.”

In the Allen case, however, a three-judge panel that included two Trump-appointed judges determined that “we cannot understand [Alabama’s new congressional maps] as anything other than an intentional effort to dilute Black Alabamians’ voting strength.” The panel reached that conclusion in an astonishingly thorough 571-page opinion handed down in 2023. After Callais, the Supreme Court ordered that panel to reconsider its ruling, and the panel did not change its mind — concluding again that Alabama engaged in intentional race discrimination.

Among other things, the panel pointed out that the 2023 Alabama law drawing the new maps achieved its racial goals by holding together a majority-white area of the state known as the Gulf Coast, while dividing a Black-majority region known as the Black Belt. Incredibly, the 2023 state law said that the Gulf Coast “shall be kept together to the fullest extent possible,” in part because Alabama lawmakers wanted to preserve its “distinct culture stemming from its French and Spanish colonial heritage.”

The state legislature, in other words, wrote into the statute itself that it wished to preserve a European American region of the state’s ability to elect its preferred representative, while the same law also broke up an African American region of Alabama. If that doesn’t give rise to a strong inference that intentional discrimination occurred, nothing does.

The Republican justices’ latest opinion in Allen, meanwhile, is only four pages long. And it spends only a single sentence responding to the hundreds of pages of evidence the lower court compiled, which shows that Alabama engaged in intentional race discrimination. According to the Republican justices, the lower court “did not heed the presumption of legislative good faith” that judges are supposed to apply to state lawmakers who are accused of race discrimination.

So, to summarize, just over one month after the Court’s Republicans declared in Callais that racial gerrymandering plaintiffs could still prevail if they can show that a state’s legislature engaged in intentional race discrimination, those same Republicans appear to have abandoned that rule. And the upshot is that the Republican Party gets an extra seat in the US House.

The GOP justices’ Allen opinion isn’t even consistent with their previous decisions in the same case

As Sotomayor explains in her dissent, there are several other examples of the Republican justices taking one position in previous decisions, then abandoning them in order to hand a victory to Alabama Republicans.

The most galling is that, in Callais, the Republican justices explicitly stated that “we have not overruled Allen,” a reference to the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in this very same case, where the Court struck down Alabama’s maps and ordered it to draw new ones. It’s now clear that the Republican justices were lying when they said that in Callais. The Court’s 2023 ruling in Allen held that Alabama must draw maps with at least two Black congressional districts, while its 2026 ruling in Allen holds that Alabama does not need to do so after Callais. So Callais overruled the 2023 opinion in Allen.

Sotomayor also spends much of her opinion warning that the Court’s latest Allen decision is likely to cause “chaos” in Alabama’s upcoming congressional election, because the primaries in that election are supposed to take place on August 11, leaving the state with very little time to complete the time-consuming task of going through each voter’s record to make sure they are assigned to the correct district.

According to Sotomayor, after a federal district court first struck down an earlier version of Alabama’s maps in 2022, the state told the Supreme Court that it needed to block that decision because the district court handed it down four months before a primary election, and “four months was not enough time to change congressional maps.” Sotomayor’s Republican colleagues appear to have agreed with that claim. Indeed, when the Court agreed to block the 2022 decision, two justices warned that the lower court’s order “would require heroic efforts by . . . state and local authorities in the next few weeks—and even heroic efforts likely would not be enough to avoid chaos and confusion.” 

So, when a lower court handed down a decision that would have benefited the Democratic Party by requiring Alabama to draw a map that would elect an additional Black Democrat, the Republican justices appear to have concluded that four months wasn’t enough time for Alabama to comply with that decision. Now, however, those same justices have decided that the state can pull off the same “heroic efforts” in just two months.

In fairness, the Court’s Republicans have occasionally ruled against their political party when that party presents particularly weak arguments. In 2020, for example, the Supreme Court famously rejected President Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his loss to former President Joe Biden. 

As I wrote at the time, handing a victory to Trump would have required herculean efforts by the justices, because Biden won by a wide enough margin that the Court would have needed to overturn the election results in three different states. That was too much even for this Supreme Court.

But this is still the same Supreme Court which held in 2024 that Trump is allowed to use the powers of the presidency to commit crimes. So the Republican justices are willing to do extraordinary favors for their political party and its leadership, even if they don’t do the GOP’s bidding in literally every case that comes before them.

It is safe to say, in other words, that the Republican justices are putting a thumb on the scales of the 2026 midterms. That’s not the same thing as putting a one-ton sack of concrete on those scales. But the most reasonable explanation for the GOP justices’ behavior is that they want to give an advantage to the Republican Party and are willing to contradict their own past decisions in order to do so.