Federal Court Blocks Alabama's New Congressional Map Over Racial Discrimination
A panel of three federal judges has ruled that Alabama cannot use a new Republican-favorable congressional map in this year's midterm elections because it was intentionally drawn to discriminate against Black voters.
The decision prevents the implementation of a map passed by Alabama lawmakers in 2023, which had not yet taken effect due to a prior court finding that it was created with discriminatory intent. Subsequently, Alabama was ordered to adopt a map featuring two majority-Black districts, both of which elected Democrats. Following the U.S. Supreme Court's significant weakening of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in April, Alabama took the unusual step of moving its upcoming congressional primary and sought to apply the 2023 map this year.
“The court recognized what we already knew: the legislature’s repeated refusal to provide Black Alabamians with fair representation in Congress is racial discrimination,” said Davin Rosborough, deputy director of the voting rights project at the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented some plaintiffs in the case. “What must remember the long history of voter suppression in the South and how many people fought and died for their right to vote. Black voters deserve a voice and a seat at the table, and if Alabama won’t provide one, we will demand one in the courts, in the legislature, and in the streets.”
Alabama’s Attorney General, Steve Marshall, a Republican, announced plans to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“I am disappointed, but not at all surprised, that the three-judge panel has again struck down Alabama’s blandly unobjectionable congressional map that has been in place for decades,” he said. “Know this – in my mind, it is not a matter of whether we win this case, only when.”
Tuesday’s ruling is notable because the judges stated that the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on the Voting Rights Act does not permit Alabama to use the disputed map.
“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 court wrote in its opinion. “We again cannot understand the 2023 Plan as anything other than intentionally discriminatory.”
The judicial panel included Judge Stanley Marcus of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, appointed by Bill Clinton, and U.S. District Judges Anna Manasco and Terry Moorer, both appointed by Donald Trump.
This case is likely to present the U.S. Supreme Court with a further test of the potential limits of its ruling that weakened the Voting Rights Act. In his majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito noted that maps drawn with discriminatory intent—an exceptionally high standard to prove—could still be challenged. The Alabama case will be the first significant test of this principle.
To reach its decision, the court reviewed an extensive record in a prolonged legal dispute over Alabama’s congressional maps, which began in 2021. That year, a group of Black plaintiffs sued the state, alleging that the congressional map diluted the voting power of Black residents. The panel agreed and ordered the state to create a new map. Lawmakers then passed the 2023 plan, which the court found continued to dilute Black voters’ influence. A court-appointed special master eventually drew Alabama’s map, adding a second majority-Black district. This plan was ultimately upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In its Tuesday decision, the three-judge panel reexamined the legislature’s enactment of the 2023 map and concluded it was adopted with discriminatory intent.
“When the Legislature enacted the 2023 Plan, it made a calculated, purposeful decision to refuse to provide the remedy for discriminatory vote dilution that our order (affirmed by the Supreme Court) required,” the panel wrote.
“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,” they added. “Further, the Legislature well knew what dilutive mechanisms would prevent Black voters in Alabama’s Black Belt and Gulf Coast communities from having any opportunity to elect representatives of their choice, and the Legislature employed precisely those mechanisms.”
The effort to redraw Alabama’s map is part of a broader movement across the U.S. South to redraw districts following the Supreme Court’s Callais decision, aiming to create more Republican-friendly seats ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. Tennessee implemented a new congressional map that eliminated a majority-Black district based in Memphis. Louisiana is also poised to remove a majority-Black district, and South Carolina may follow suit soon.
These efforts have been met with widespread criticism from Black leaders and civil rights organizations, who argue that such actions revive a troubling chapter in American history and intentionally disenfranchise Black voters.
