A three-judge federal panel ruled Tuesday that Alabama cannot use a Republican-backed congressional map for this year's elections, finding that lawmakers deliberately drew district lines to suppress Black voters.
The decision prevents the state from deploying a map it passed in 2023 that was previously rejected by the same court on identical grounds. Alabama had sought to resurrect the map after the U.S. Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act in April, even moving up its congressional primary to enable the switch.
The state is now bound by an earlier court order requiring it to maintain a map containing two majority-Black districts that elect Democratic candidates. That earlier ruling had forced Alabama to abandon its initial map for discriminating against Black voters when it was first challenged.
Tuesday's decision marks another setback for Republican efforts to redraw congressional boundaries in the state. The timing underscores how recent Supreme Court precedent has shifted the legal landscape around voting rights enforcement, with Alabama apparently believing the weakened federal oversight provided an opening to push through a map it had already lost court battles over.
The panel's finding that the 2023 map was drawn with intentional discriminatory intent suggests the state would face an uphill legal battle attempting to use it again in the future, regardless of further changes to federal voting rights law.
Author James Rodriguez: "When a state gets caught twice with the same discriminatory map, it's not a coincidence or a drafting error, it's a pattern."
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