The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday halted a federal court order that forced Alabama to use a House map with two districts where Black voters had a meaningful opportunity to elect their preferred candidates, opening the door for the state’s Republican-led legislature to implement a map with only one majority-Black district. The unsigned order, issued just eight days before Alabama’s scheduled primary, directed a lower court to reconsider the case in light of a recent Louisiana ruling, effectively allowing Alabama to abandon the map that had given the state two Black representatives for the first time in its history.
The decision stems from the high court’s April ruling that declared a majority-Black district in Louisiana an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. That decision eroded Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which had been used to require districts where minority voters could elect candidates of their choice. Alabama officials argued that the Louisiana ruling compelled an end to the court-ordered map in their state, and the Supreme Court agreed, vacating the lower court’s injunction.
Alabama Republicans celebrated the outcome. Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a video statement that the ruling “vindicated the state’s long-held position” and that “the power to draw Alabama’s maps goes back to the people’s elected representatives.” He added that his job was “to put the legislature in the best possible legal position to draw a congressional map that favors Republicans seven-to-zero,” concluding with “Stay tuned.”
House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter called the decision “a massive victory not just for Alabama, but for conservatives across the country.” Secretary of State Wes Allen called it a “historic win for Alabama voters” and said the May 19 primaries would proceed as scheduled but that his office would remain in close contact with the governor as the situation develops.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the brief ruling, noting that although the Voting Rights Act ground had been removed, a lower court could still find that Alabama intentionally discriminated against Black voters in violation of the 14th Amendment.
The ruling drew sharp condemnation from civil rights groups. NAACP National President Derrick Johnson declared, “We are witnessing a return to Jim Crow. And anybody who is alarmed by these developments — as everybody should be — better be making a plan to vote in November to put an end to this madness while we still can.” Deuel Ross, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorney who argued the Alabama case, said, “We will consider all of our options to fight to protect the rights of these voters and keep the court ordered map in place.”
The impact is immediate: the state’s primary is just a week away. Alabama lawmakers last week approved legislation allowing special primaries in four affected congressional districts if the map changes, with the governor setting the date. The move could create confusion for voters and throws the political future of Rep. Shomari Figures, a Democrat, into doubt. Figures was elected in 2024 under the court-ordered map, becoming one of the state’s two Black representatives for the first time. He called the Supreme Court’s action “an incredibly unfortunate decision” that “sets the stage for Alabama to go back to the 1950s and ‘60s in terms of Black political representation in the state.”
Plaintiff Shalela Dowdy echoed that sentiment: “For me, I feel like this is a step backwards towards the Jim Crow era for congressional representation. The state is not going to stop here,” she said, predicting that Alabama would eventually seek to eliminate the remaining majority-Black district.
The Alabama fight is part of a broader national redistricting battle that has intensified since President Donald Trump urged Texas Republicans last year to redraw districts to protect the GOP’s narrow House majority. Voting districts are typically redrawn once a decade after the census, but numerous Republican-led states have moved to revise maps following the Louisiana ruling. So far, Republicans estimate they could gain as many as 14 additional seats from new maps in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and Tennessee. Democrats think they could pick up up to six seats from California and Utah, but suffered a setback when the Virginia Supreme Court overturned a voter-approved redistricting amendment that could have yielded four more seats.