A panel of federal judges blocked Alabama’s newly drawn congressional maps ahead of the midterms in a blistering ruling after determining that the plan was discriminatory against black voters.
Alabama was pushing to use the maps that redraw the state’s only majority-black district, but the court rejected it in a brutal, lengthy decision released on Tuesday.
The move to block the GOP-backed maps came from Judge Stanley Marcus, who was first appointed by President Ronald Reagan, as well as Judges Anna Manasco and Terry Moorer, who were both appointed by President Donald Trump.
The effort in red states to redraw districts across the South in an attempt to favor Republicans has been encouraged by Trump.
Black Democratic lawmakers have slammed the move as a racist effort to deny black voters fair representation in Congress.
It intensified after the U.S. Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act last month, but the decision on Alabama throws the scramble to redraw congressional districts ahead of the midterms into further chaos, with the primary season well underway.
The court halted the use of the 2023 maps drawn up by Republicans after looking at the case again in light of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling. It had previously found the plan discriminatory, but the country’s highest court determined that the decision should be reexamined.
“We again cannot understand the 2023 Plan as anything other than intentionally discriminatory,” they wrote in the scathing new ruling.
“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 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 continued.
Despite the Supreme Court weakening the landmark civil rights law, the court found that the Alabama plan still violated the U.S. Constitution.
The court noted that the events “along with legislators’ contemporaneous statements about race, support only one inference: the purpose of the 2023 Plan was to distribute Black voters across districts to dilute their votes, at least in part because they are Black.”
The court indicated that it was also considering the tight timeline for the state’s upcoming primary when making the decision and determined that the timing was not too close for the 2026 election.
The judges wrote that blocking the 2023 maps would not disrupt the state’s election and ordered the state to instead use the maps drawn by a nonpartisan special master.
“We take extremely seriously the Supreme Court’s command that federal district courts ordinarily should not intervene on the eve of an election, for risk of causing administrative challenges and confusion,” they wrote. “But the record here is clear: enjoining the unconstitutional 2023 Plan will improve the administrative situation in Alabama, not worsen it.”
“As we see it, the irreducible minimum is that federal law requires that all Alabamians have an opportunity to vote under districting plans untainted by intentional race-based discrimination,” they added.
Republicans are expected to appeal the decision as GOP Governor Kay Ivey said the redistricting battle will continue.
“I fully support Attorney General Marshall appealing this unsurprising decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, and I remain hopeful they will allow Alabama to move forward with our August 11 Special Primary Election. I will continue to say: Alabama knows our state, our people and our districts best," she told Daily Beast in a statement.
While the ruling was narrowly focused on addressing Alabama’s redistricting efforts, it comes as multiple Republican-led states are considering redistricting ahead of the 2026 midterms.
State legislators in South Carolina are in the process of passing new maps backed by the White House, which would eliminate the district represented by longtime Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn.
Georgia state lawmakers will consider redrawing districts to further favor Republicans in 2028 when they return for a special legislative session next month.
