A panel of three federal judges has ruled that Alabama cannot use a new Republican-friendly congressional map in this year’s midterm elections, finding it was drawn with the intent to discriminate against Black voters. The decision, issued on Tuesday, blocks a map passed by the state legislature in 2023 but never implemented due to prior court orders requiring a map with two majority-Black districts.
The ruling stems from a long-running legal battle that began in 2021, when Black plaintiffs sued Alabama over its congressional map, alleging dilution of Black voting power. After the US Supreme Court weakened a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in its April ruling in Louisiana v Callais, Alabama sought to revive the 2023 map by moving its primary election date. The three-judge panel, however, found that the map was intentionally discriminatory.
“The court recognized what we already knew: the Alabama legislature’s repeated refusal to provide Black Alabamians with fair representation in Congress is racial discrimination,” said Davin Rosborough, deputy director of the voting rights project at the American Civil Liberties Union. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, said he would appeal the decision to the US Supreme Court, expressing confidence that the state would ultimately prevail.
The panel, consisting of Judge Stanley Marcus (appointed by Bill Clinton) and District Judges Anna Manasco and Terry Moorer (both appointed by Donald Trump), wrote that the 2023 plan was “tainted by intentional race-based discrimination.” They noted that the legislature knowingly enacted a map that diluted Black voters’ influence, despite court orders to the contrary. The case now presents a test of whether the Supreme Court’s recent ruling allows challenges to maps drawn with discriminatory intent.
