Alabama has repeatedly defended congressional maps that lower courts have held dilute the power of Black voters, prompting a Supreme Court test of how much protection Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act still offers today. Here’s what you need to know.
A Long Fight Over One Seat
Black Alabamians make up more than a quarter of the state’s adult population and live in regions that could support two districts where Black voters form a majority. Even so, after the 2020 census, the Legislature adopted a congressional map with only one majority‑Black district. Black voters and civil‑rights groups sued, arguing that the map was drawn to pack many Black voters into a single safe seat and scatter the rest across several majority‑white districts, so they could not reliably elect a second representative of their choice.
A federal trial court agreed. In 2022, a three‑judge panel ordered Alabama to adopt a new map that either created a second majority‑Black district or, at a minimum, added another district where Black voters had a fair chance to elect their preferred candidate. The state appealed, but the U.S. Supreme Court upheld that ruling, saying the lower court had correctly applied the Court’s own test for when district lines illegally weaken minority voting power. Under that law at the time, Alabama’s 2021 map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
In response, the Legislature drew a replacement map – but it still included only one majority‑Black district. Lawmakers backed this new map with a set of unusual “findings” that elevated certain majority‑white regions (especially the Gulf Coast) as communities that had to be kept intact. They also imposed rigid rules about avoiding county splits and protecting incumbents. The same three‑judge court later found that these choices made it practically impossible to create the additional Black‑opportunity district federal law required and reflected a deliberate decision not to fix the discrimination the courts had already identified.
After a trial on that replacement map, the district court in 2025 permanently barred Alabama from using it, finding that it still weakened Black voting power and was partly motivated by an intent to disadvantage Black voters. The judges then put a different map in place themselves, having an outside expert draw new district lines using race‑neutral criteria. That court‑ordered map created one majority‑Black district and a second where Black voters had a realistic chance to elect their preferred candidate, while otherwise staying close to the Legislature’s design. Alabama used this map for the 2024 elections.
The story might have ended there. But a couple of months ago, the Supreme Court changed the rules.
New Rules, Old Map
In the very recent decision Louisiana v. Callais, the Court announced a tougher standard for Voting Rights Act challenges. There, the Court held that, going forward, plaintiffs’ proposed maps must satisfy the state’s stated districting priorities at least as well as the legislature’s own plan, that race cannot be the predominant factor in drawing those alternatives, and that plaintiffs must show racially polarized voting cannot be explained away as ordinary partisanship.
SCOTUS sent the Alabama case back to the district court to be reconsidered under this new standard and lifted the earlier permanent injunction. On paper, the SCOTUS order put the Legislature’s 2023 map back in charge as the governing law. But in practice, Alabama’s election systems were still built around the court‑ordered map, which was the one counties had been using to assign voters and run contests.
By then, the 2026 election cycle was already in motion. Candidates had qualified and been certified for districts drawn under the remedial map, absentee ballots had gone out, and in‑person voting was just weeks away. Last month, Alabama lawmakers passed a new law allowing special primaries in August if their preferred map is reinstated. The plaintiffs quickly returned to the district court, asking for a new, temporary order to stop Alabama from switching back to the Legislature’s map in the middle of the election calendar.
The Court granted that request. After re‑examining the record in light of the Supreme Court’s new guidance, it concluded that the Legislature’s map still illegally diluted Black voting power and that the Legislature had intentionally maintained that imbalance. The judges emphasized that Alabama had been told more than once to create a second district where Black voters could elect their preferred candidates and had instead adopted criteria that made that all but impossible. They also found that, as a practical matter, leaving the court‑ordered map in place would be far less disruptive than forcing county officials to rush through a mass reassignment of voters to different districts at the last minute.
Alabama immediately returned to the Supreme Court, just last week. And this past Tuesday, in a short, unsigned decision, the justices put the lower court’s order on hold.
SCOTUS Lets the Map Stand
The SCOTUS majority issued a stay that allows the state to use the Legislature’s map for the 2026 elections while the appeal continues. The Court signaled that it thinks Alabama has a strong chance of ultimately winning. It criticized the lower court for not giving enough deference to the Legislature’s stated goals, and for not applying the tightened rules from the Louisiana case strictly enough—both on how plaintiffs draw their alternative maps and on how they prove racially polarized voting. The Court invoked its recent warning that federal judges should avoid altering election rules close to an election, sometimes known as the Purcell principle. The Court has invoked the Purcell principle before, even when lower courts found election rules unlawful, although it has been argued that the current Court is applying the principle unevenly.
Three liberal justices (Sotomayor, joined by Jackson and Kagan) dissented. They argued that keeping the court‑ordered map would have produced an orderly election under lines everyone already knew, while reverting to the Legislature’s map this late would create confusion and extra work for local officials. They stressed that the Legislature’s plan had already been found to intentionally discriminate against Black voters and warned that letting it govern yet another election undermines both the Voting Rights Act and the Court’s own earlier decision upholding the first injunction.
If nothing else, the recent development illustrates how much harder it has become to challenge allegedly discriminatory maps under federal law, especially after the Court’s new standard in the Louisiana case. Alabama’s case began with a rare, clear win for Black voters at both the trial court and the Supreme Court. But after the Court changed the legal standard and then stepped in on an emergency basis, the state has been allowed (for now) to revive a map the lower court still views as both intentionally discriminatory and unlawful.
