A three-judge federal panel on Tuesday halted Alabama's newly drawn congressional map, ruling that Republican legislators deliberately structured the districts to dilute Black voting power in violation of the Constitution.
The map would have eliminated one of Alabama's two majority-minority districts, handing Republicans a crucial gain ahead of the 2026 elections. Instead, the court found the plan tainted by intentional racial discrimination and ordered it blocked before Alabamians could cast ballots under its lines.
"The Legislature well knew that a plan without an additional Black-opportunity district would dilute Black Alabamians' opportunity to participate in the political process, and it intentionally enacted that very plan," the judges wrote in their decision. They cited the state's deliberate use of "dilutive mechanisms" specifically designed to weaken Black voter influence in the Alabama Black Belt and Gulf Coast regions.
The ruling marks a sharp reversal for Republican leadership. The GOP had rushed to redraw Alabama's districts after the Supreme Court gutted a key section of the Voting Rights Act last month, clearing the way for states to eliminate majority-minority seats. Alabama Republicans seized on that opening, crafting a map with only one majority-Black district and another that is roughly 40% Black.
This is the latest chapter in a years-long battle between Alabama and federal courts over the state's congressional lines. In 2023, Republican legislators openly defied a federal court order, affirmed by the Supreme Court, to create two districts where Black voters constituted voting-age majorities "or something quite close to it." The state's refusal forced a federal court to impose its own map for the 2024 election.
Governor Kay Ivey had already scheduled a second primary election in August for the affected districts, an adjustment that will now need reconsideration given the court's block. The state is expected to appeal the ruling, setting up another clash between Montgomery and the judiciary.
Alabama joins a roster of Southern Republican-led states racing to redraw districts in the wake of the Supreme Court's Voting Rights Act decision, seeking to flip seats held by Democrats by dismantling the districts that enabled Black representation.
Author Sarah Mitchell: "The court's language here is unsparing, and rightfully so, the judges essentially called out the legislature for knowing exactly what it was doing and doing it anyway."
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