Alabama asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to let it use a Republican-drawn congressional map for this year’s elections, after a three-judge federal panel ruled the plan intentionally discriminates against Black voters and refused to allow it to take effect. The state’s Republican leadership filed an emergency appeal a day after the panel declined to lift an injunction that had blocked the map and required Alabama to continue using a court-ordered map implemented for the 2024 elections — one that includes two districts where Black residents constitute a majority or close to it.
The state’s attorney general, Steve Marshall, told the court that Alabama did not intentionally discriminate against Black residents and should be allowed to hold elections this year under a map chosen by lawmakers, not judges. “The state did not intentionally discriminate,” Marshall argued, according to the filing. The appeal asks the justices to act by Monday as Alabama prepares for special congressional primaries on Aug. 11 in four affected districts. Voters cast ballots in Alabama’s regularly scheduled primaries on May 19.
President Donald Trump’s Justice Department backed Alabama’s bid, filing a brief that said the state is “highly likely to succeed” in its effort to implement a map the administration described as favoring Republicans 6-1, in place of what it called a court-ordered “racial gerrymander.” The case is the latest flashpoint in a nationwide redistricting fight that intensified after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority last month struck down a Black-majority district in Louisiana in a ruling that weakened the federal Voting Rights Act. Republicans in several Southern states, including Alabama, have since moved to reshape voting districts with large minority populations that have elected Democrats.
The Alabama dispute stretches back several years. The three-judge panel first ruled in 2023 that a map drawn by Republican state lawmakers intentionally diluted the voting power of Black citizens. The court said Alabama, which is about 27% Black, should have two districts where Black voters form a majority or close to it. The court-selected map was used in the 2024 elections, leading to the election of U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures, a Black Democrat, from the newly created second district.
After the Supreme Court’s Louisiana ruling, Alabama officials moved to implement the 2023 state-drawn map. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority agreed to lift the injunction that had blocked the map’s use and sent the case back to the three-judge panel to reconsider in light of the Louisiana decision. But upon further review, the panel said it was standing behind its original finding that there was “undisputed evidence” of intentional racial discrimination — a holding, the judges said, that was independent of and unaffected by the Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act ruling. The panel ordered that the special congressional primaries proceed under the previous court-approved districts.