A federal three-judge panel on Tuesday (May 26) blocked Alabama from using its Republican-drawn congressional map this year, ruling the map remains racially discriminatory despite a recent Supreme Court ruling.
The court issued a preliminary injunction in the redistricting case. The three judges ordered the state to use the 2024 court-drawn map, which led to the election of two Black Democrats in Alabama.
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Republicans have already begun to implement the 2023 congressional map this year, which would revert the state to one majority-Black district. After a special session in which the Legislature passed a law to revert to that map, Gov. Kay Ivey scheduled special primary elections for four congressional districts on Aug. 11.
“Ultimately, we cannot see our way clear to requiring Alabamians to cast their votes in the 2026 elections under a districting plan tainted by intentional race-based discrimination,” the panel wrote.
Alabama appealed the lower court’s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court shortly after it was issued. Attorney General Steve Marshall said he was “disappointed” by the decision.
“Know this — in my mind, it is not a matter of whether we win this case, only when,” Marshall said.
Ivey said she is backing the state’s appeal.
“I fully support Attorney General Marshall appealing this unsurprising decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, and I remain hopeful they will allow Alabama to move forward with our August 11 Special Primary Election,” Ivey said. “I will continue to say: Alabama knows our state, our people and our districts best.”
Tuesday’s ruling is the latest in a flurry of legal activity in Alabama’s redistricting efforts after the Supreme Court narrowed how race could be used to draw boundary lines in a Louisiana redistricting case in late April.
Earlier this month, in light of the Louisiana v. Callias decision, the state asked the high court to intervene in its case to allow Alabama to use the 2023 map adopted by the Legislature. It would likely flip one of the state’s seats red, giving Republicans another seat in Congress.
The Supreme Court did just that, quickly paving the way for the state to use that map this year by vacating the lower court’s mandate, but at the same time calling for that same three-judge panel to review the case. Plaintiffs also asked the lower court for a preliminary injunction to bar the state from using the Republican-friendly map.
After a hearing last week, the federal panel concluded that when lawmakers crafted the 2023 congressional map, they “tried to distribute Black voters across districts to dilute their votes, at least in part because they are Black.” The judges ruled that the map remains racially discriminatory and thus violates the Constitution, even in light of the Louisiana decision.
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Alex Angle and originally published by Alabama Daily News.
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