The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama – Southern Division issued a preliminary injunction against the state’s new Congressional map.
The Supreme Court remanded the case back to the lower court “for consideration in light of Louisiana v. Callais.”
Alabama went to SCOTUS after the ruling in the Louisiana case, in which SCOTUS reminded everyone that you cannot use race as a factor in drawing a congressional district.
The district court’s ruling required Alabama to have two black congressional districts, similar to the Louisiana case.
Did the court listen? Nope:
After that exacting review, we conclude that a preliminary injunction must issue. Ultimately, 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. And under the unusual circumstances of this case, we conclude that a limited order requiring the Secretary to continue using this Court’s race-blind map will not disrupt Alabama’s elections (all candidates ran under the race blind map until fifteen days ago, and all voters remain districted under the race-blind map in electoral computer systems).
The court insisted that Alabama purposely “diluted” the black vote:
We again cannot understand the 2023 Plan as anything other than intentionally discriminatory. When the Legislature enacted the 2023 Plan, it made a calculated, purposeful decision to refuse to provide the remedy for discriminatory vote dilution that our order (affirmed by the Supreme Court) required. The Legislature well knew that a plan without an additional Black-opportunity district would dilute Black Alabamians’ opportunity to participate in the political process, and it intentionally enacted that very plan. Further, the Legislature well knew what dilutive mechanisms would prevent Black voters in Alabama’s Black Belt and Gulf Coast communities.
The court also claimed that public statements from legislators are evidence that the state used raced to redraw the map.
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