A nationwide redistricting battle over U.S. House seats tilted further toward Republicans this week, as GOP-led legislatures in Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Tennessee raced to redraw congressional maps following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened Voting Rights Act protections for minority communities. Meanwhile, a Virginia state court dealt a setback to Democrats, invalidating a redistricting amendment that could have given the party up to four additional seats.
In Alabama, Republican Governor Kay Ivey signed legislation Friday that authorizes a special primary to replace the court-ordered map used in the 2024 election, which produced a Black-majority district represented by Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures. The law would allow the state to revert to a 2023 GOP-drawn map rejected by a federal court if the U.S. Supreme Court or a lower court lifts an injunction that currently blocks its use. “With this special session successfully behind us, Alabama now stands ready to quickly act, should the courts issue favorable rulings in our ongoing redistricting cases,” Ivey said in a statement.
The move drew heated opposition. Demonstrators outside the statehouse shouted “fight for democracy” and “down with white supremacy.” Betty White Boynton, who marched for voting rights in 1965, said, “I was out there in 1965 marching for the right to vote, and now we are back here in 2026 doing the same thing.” Democratic state Sen. Rodger Smitherman likened the law to Jim Crow: “What happened here today is that we were set back as a people to the days of Reconstruction.” On Friday evening, a three-judge federal panel rejected Alabama’s request to lift the injunction, but the state’s appeal now awaits action by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In Louisiana, a state Senate committee on Friday considered several redistricting plans from Republican state Sen. John Morris that would eliminate one or both of the state’s current Black-majority U.S. House districts. Democratic state Sen. Sam Jenkins said, “Every one of these maps reduces Black voting power in every one of the districts. And I think that’s a problem.” Morris denied the maps were racially discriminatory, saying, “I don’t think we should care that much about race.” Leona Tate, who at age 6 was escorted by federal marshals to desegregate a New Orleans school in 1960, told lawmakers they faced a choice: “You can draw a map that reflects what Louisiana actually is — a state where Black voices belong in the halls of Congress,” or one that tells her grandchildren “that the progress I helped build with my own two feet as a 6-year-old can be erased at will.”
South Carolina lawmakers held a rare Friday hearing on a proposed congressional map designed to allow Republicans to sweep all seven of the state’s House seats. But the proposal faces an uncertain path, requiring a two-thirds vote in the state Senate to move forward, and some Republicans expressed concern that breaking up the Democratic-held 6th District could make the other six seats more competitive. Democratic state Rep. Justin