Alabama asks Supreme Court to let GOP-friendly congressional map stand

Alabama asked the Supreme Court to let its congressional map stand, a plan Republicans said would help them in the midterm fight and that civil rights groups say would keep Black voters confined to just one effective opportunity district in a state where they make up more than 27% of the voting-age population.

The filing landed in a long redistricting battle that began after the 2020 census. Black voters and civil rights groups challenged Alabama’s original 2021 map under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, arguing that the Legislature packed and cracked Black communities to weaken their representation. On Jan. 24, 2022, a three-judge federal court blocked that map, finding the plaintiffs likely would win. The Supreme Court later affirmed that ruling in Allen v. Milligan on June 8, 2023.

Alabama then adopted a new congressional map on July 21, 2023, but that plan also drew immediate legal fire. A federal court issued a preliminary injunction on Sept. 5, 2023, and later ordered a remedial map for the 2024 election only. In May 2025, a three-judge panel went further, ruling that Alabama’s 2023 plan violated the Voting Rights Act and was intentionally discriminatory. The panel said it could not understand the 2023 plan as anything other than an intentional effort to dilute Black Alabamians’ voting strength.

The dispute reached the Supreme Court again on May 11, 2026, when the justices vacated the 2025 ruling and sent the case back for further review in light of Louisiana v. Callais. That move left the 2023 map available for the 2026 elections unless lower courts acted immediately. Alabama then asked the justices to pause a lower-court order that had blocked use of the map because it would dilute Black voting power and discriminate on the basis of race.

The stakes extend well beyond Montgomery. The challenged map split the Black Belt region across four different districts, weakening the political weight of Black communities across central Alabama. Civil rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP of Alabama, Greater Birmingham Ministries and the Legal Defense Fund, have said the 2024 remedial map created two districts that gave Black voters a fair chance to elect candidates of their choosing. Under the state’s 2023 plan, they said, Black voters were left with only one such district out of seven congressional seats. If Alabama succeeds, the map could help Republicans flip one Democratic-held seat and bolster their narrow House majority.