Alabama – Alabama’s long fight over congressional lines has suddenly returned to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the timing could hardly be more charged. What was started last year by Texas continues this year as nationwide trend.
Just days before the state’s May 19 primary, Republican officials are asking Justice Clarence Thomas to clear the way for a map that lower courts have already rejected, a move that could erase one of Alabama’s two court-ordered majority-Black congressional districts and reshape the state’s political battlefield before voters finish choosing nominees.
The emergency request lands in the middle of a growing national redistricting war, with states on both sides looking for ways to strengthen their parties before the 2026 midterm elections.
Texas helped set the tone, while Florida and California have also moved through their own redistricting battles.
Virginia recently delivered a setback to Democrats when a court struck down a redraw that could have helped the party. Now Alabama is trying to seize on a fresh Supreme Court ruling from Louisiana, arguing that the legal ground beneath its own map has shifted.
At the center of the dispute is a simple but powerful question: whether Alabama must keep a congressional map that gives Black voters a realistic chance to elect candidates in two of the state’s seven U.S. House districts.
Alabama’s Black population makes up roughly one-quarter of the state’s voters, yet the state’s earlier map included six majority-white districts and only one majority-Black district. That map was challenged under the Voting Rights Act and became the subject of the landmark case Allen v. Milligan.
In 2023, the Supreme Court allowed lower-court rulings to stand after judges found Alabama’s map likely diluted Black voting power. The state was ordered to draw a second district where Black voters could have meaningful representation.
Alabama lawmakers then tried again, but their revised map still kept only one majority-Black district. A federal court rejected that effort and eventually imposed a map with two majority-Black districts, creating a political opening that helped Democrats win another seat.
Alabama officials now want that order lifted.
In a filing directed to Justice Clarence Thomas, who handles emergency matters from the 11th Circuit, Attorney General Steve Marshall asked the Supreme Court to block what his office called a “race-based congressional map” before the May 19 primary.
Marshall’s office argued that the court’s recent ruling in Louisiana v. Callais changed how courts should review Voting Rights Act redistricting cases.
The Louisiana decision has become the spark for Alabama’s new push. In that case, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority struck down Louisiana’s second majority-Black district, finding that the state relied too heavily on race when drawing the map.
Critics said the ruling weakened one of the most important tools for challenging racial vote dilution, while Republicans framed it as a correction against race-driven districting. Still, the majority did not say it was overturning Allen v. Milligan, the Alabama case that forced the creation of a second Black-opportunity district in the first place.
If Alabama wins emergency relief, the consequences could be immediate. The state could be allowed to use its rejected 2023 remedial map, which would likely remove one majority-Black district and give Republicans a strong chance to reclaim a seat now held by Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures.
State lawmakers have already passed legislation that could allow new congressional primaries if courts approve a different map, and Gov. Kay Ivey signed the measure into law Friday.
A lower federal court has already refused to lift the injunction blocking Alabama from using the rejected map, saying the issue now belongs to the Supreme Court while the appeal is pending.
That leaves Alabama waiting on the justices, with the primary calendar moving ahead and candidates facing uncertainty over the districts they may ultimately run in.
The fight is bigger than Alabama. Republicans in Tennessee are moving to redraw maps, and South Carolina lawmakers are weighing similar steps. For Democrats and voting-rights groups, the fear is that the Louisiana ruling could invite more states to attack court-ordered minority districts by claiming they were drawn too heavily around race. For Republicans, the argument is that legislatures should be free to pursue political and regional goals without courts forcing race-conscious lines.
What happens next rests with the Supreme Court, and perhaps first with Thomas. Alabama is asking for fast action, not a slow legal review. Days before voters head into the primary, the state is trying to turn a recent ruling into a political and legal opening, one that could redraw not only district lines but also the balance of power in Washington.
