From The New York Times :
Court Rejects Alabama House Map, Calling It Unfair to Black Voters Alabama is likely to appeal the ruling, which stops an effort to use a new congressional map that would likely cost Democrats a majority-Black district.
People march for voting rights on the famed Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., in May. Credit... Wes Frazer for The New York Times By Emily Cochrane and Abbie VanSickle
Emily Cochrane, who lives in Nashville, has covered Alabama’s redistricting process since 2023. Abbie VanSickle covers the Supreme Court from Washington.
May 26, 2026 Updated 3:36 p.m. ET A panel of federal judges on Tuesday rejected Alabama’s effort to use a new voting map for the November midterm elections, saying that the districts discriminated against Black people and could not be used so shortly before a vote. Alabama’s attorney general, Steve Marshall, announced in a court filing Tuesday afternoon that he would immediately appeal to the Supreme Court, which last month ruled that a Louisiana congressional map drawn to create two majority-Black House districts was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, has already set special primaries in August in four House districts that would be affected by her state’s new congressional map. The ruling further confuses the electoral landscape across the South, as Republican-led legislatures have raced to implement new district lines after the Supreme Court narrowed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It also demonstrates how the ruling from the nation’s highest court has further muddled how lower courts interpret the landmark civil rights law. And in the saw-saw battle over redistricting ahead of the midterms, Democrats seeking control of the House got a two wins on Tuesday, the ruling in Alabama, plus the decision by South Carolina state senators to adjourn without drawing up a new map to eliminate that state’s one majority-Black House seat. With thousands of votes already cast on the first day of South Carolina’s early voting, there was no longer enough support among Republicans to push through new district lines before the state’s June 9 primary. If the Supreme Court takes up the Alabama case, it will be the first major test of the high court’s new standard for challenging congressional maps. The lower court judges made clear that they had reviewed the arguments through the lens of the Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act ruling last month but maintained that the state’s map failed under the new standard by intentionally discriminating against Black voters. Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, has already set special primaries in August in four House districts that would be affected by her state’s new congressional map. Credit... The Montgomery Advertiser, via Associated Press “We cannot see our way clear to requiring Alabamians to cast their votes in the 2026 elections under a districting plan tainted by intentional race-based discrimination,” the panel of three judges wrote in a lengthy ruling. It also warned against causing voters additional confusion by trying to use a new map before the November elections. The court, the panel wrote, was “painfully aware of the gravity of our ruling.” But, it added, “we do not find the issue particularly complex or close.” The decision out of the Birmingham-based federal court was issued by Judge Stanley Marcus , who was nominated to the bench by former President Bill Clinton; and by Judges Anna M. Manasco and Terry F. Moorer , both named to their posts by President Trump. (Judge Marcus typically sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta.) Mr. Marshall, the attorney general, said he was “disappointed, but not at all surprised” by the ruling. “Know this,” he added, “in my mind, it is not a matter of whether we win this case, only when.” Read the document A panel of federal judges on Tuesday rejected Alabama’s effort to use a new voting map for the November midterm elections, a decision that is likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court.
READ DOCUMENT In the 79-page ruling, the judges said they faced a difficult choice. They could either greenlight a map they had already concluded was intentionally discriminatory, or they could block that map for the current election.
The judges wrote that they did “not lightly intrude in state affairs,” but that their previous review had left them “in no doubt” that Alabama’s map “intentionally discriminated based on race in violation of the Constitution.”
The panel explained that it had reviewed the case under the Supreme Court’s updated standard, which appears to allow partisan gerrymandering but sets a high standard to challenge maps for race discrimination.
The judges wrote that the “enormous record” around the drawing of the districts “contains no evidence of a partisan motive.” Their ruling, they wrote, marked a rejection “in the strongest possible terms” of Alabama’s “attempt to finish its intentional decision to dilute minority votes with a veneer of legislative regularity.”
The decision also wrestles with two issues that have arisen in other states scrambling to redraw their maps in the middle of the primary season: the burden on election officials and the potential for significant voter confusion.
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