A federal court blocked Alabama Republicans’ plans to have the state’s Congressional map redrawn in their favor, ahead of the upcoming 2026 midterm elections.
In a preliminary injunction issued by a “three-judge panel,” the judges argued that a proposed Congressional map, which would give the Republicans 6 seats and the Democrats one seat, was “tainted by intentional race-based discrimination,” according to the Associated Press.
“Ultimately, 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 judges said.
The decision from the court comes years after the three-judge panel had issued a ruling that the state’s Congressional map “should have two districts where Black voters are the majority or close to it”:
The three-judge panel in 2023 ruled that a map drawn by Republican state lawmakers intentionally diluted the voting power of Black citizens. The court said the state, which is about 27% Black, should have two districts where Black voters are the majority or close to it. The court-selected map was used in 2024.
After the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the Louisiana case, Alabama officials moved to implement the 2023 state-drawn map. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority agreed to lift the injunction that had blocked the map’s use and sent the case back to the three-judge panel for reconsideration in light of the Louisiana ruling.
One of the judges on the panel was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, while the other two were appointed by President Donald Trump, the Hill reported.
In a press release, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall (R) expressed that he was “disappointed” in the court’s decision and added that he would be appealing “this decision to the 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 to decades,” Marshall said. “I find nothing in the U.S. Supreme Court’s vacatur order of May 11 that would provide a basis for this outcome; thus, we will immediately appeal this decision to the Supreme Court.”
The decision from the court comes after the Supreme Court, in April, “struck down a race-based redistricting map in Louisiana.”
“Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was designed to enforce the Constitution — not collide with it,” Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion. “Unfortunately, lower courts have sometimes applied this Court’s §2 precedents in a way that forces States to engage in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids.”
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