Elections · Civil Rights · Constitutional Law · Judicial Review·May 26, 2026
Federal court blocks Alabama's intentionally discriminatory congressional map
Two Trump-appointed judges join Clinton judge to block Alabama's discriminatory map
A federal three-judge panel issued a 102-page Preliminary InjunctionA court order that temporarily blocks a government action or policy while a lawsuit challenging it works through the courts.Key ConceptPreliminary InjunctionA court order that temporarily blocks a government action or policy while a lawsuit challenging it works through the courts.Open concept on May 26, 2026, blocking Alabama from using its Republican-drawn 2023 congressional map in the 2026 midterm elections. The panel consisted of Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus (appointed by Bill Clinton to the 11th Circuit, originally to district court by Ronald Reagan) and District Judges Anna Manasco and Terry Moorer (both appointed by Donald Trump). They ruled unanimously that the map was unconstitutional. The legislature knew its plan would dilute Black Alabamians' political power and chose to enact it anyway.
The ruling ordered Alabama to use the court-drawn special-master map that already served as the state's electoral blueprint for the 2024 elections. That map created two Black opportunity districts — Alabama's 2nd and 7th congressional districts — allowing the state to elect two Black representatives to Congress simultaneously for the first time in its history.
The May 26 ruling was the third time this same panel blocked Alabama's attempts to use a map with only one majority-Black district. The original challenge began after Alabama passed a 2021 RedistrictingThe process of redrawing congressional and state legislative district boundaries, typically every 10 years after the Census, to equalize populations.Key ConceptRedistrictingThe process of redrawing congressional and state legislative district boundaries, typically every 10 years after the Census, to equalize populations.Open concept plan following the 2020 census. A three-judge panel found the plan likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights ActFederal statute prohibiting racial discrimination in voting and establishing federal oversight of election administration in jurisdictions with histories of discrimination.Key ConceptVoting Rights ActFederal statute prohibiting racial discrimination in voting and establishing federal oversight of election administration in jurisdictions with histories of discrimination.Open concept, and the Supreme Court affirmed that finding 5-4 in Allen v. Milligan on June 8, 2023.
Alabama's Republican-controlled legislature responded by passing a new map in July 2023 that raised the percentage of Black voters from about 31% to only 40% in the 2nd District, still short of creating a genuine Black opportunity district. The same three-judge panel rejected that map too, appointed a special master, and adopted a court-drawn map in October 2023. That court-ordered map, with the 2nd District at approximately 48.7% Black voting-age population, went into effect for the 2024 elections.
The legal landscape shifted sharply on April 29, 2026, when the Supreme Court issued its 6-3 decision in Louisiana v. Callais. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. The ruling affirmed that Louisiana's second majority-Black congressional district was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The majority also significantly reworked the Gingles framework, the 40-year-old test courts use to evaluate Voting Rights Act Section 2 claims.
Callais made it harder for plaintiffs to win VRA Section 2 cases by requiring illustrative maps to meet all of a state's political objectives, requiring proof that racial bloc voting can't be explained by partisan affiliation alone, and requiring strong evidence of present-day intentional racial discrimination in the totality-of-circumstances analysis. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey called a special legislative session the same day, and the legislature moved to reinstate the rejected 2023 map.
On May 11, 2026, the Supreme Court acted on Alabama AG Steve Marshall's emergency motion. In a brief unsigned shadow-docket order, the Court vacated the lower court's injunctions blocking Alabama's 2023 map and remanded the cases, including Allen v. Milligan, Allen v. Singleton, and Allen v. Caster, back to the three-judge panel in light of Louisiana v. Callais. The Court didn't issue a full opinion or explain its reasoning. The order came eight days before Alabama's scheduled May 19 primary elections.
Governor Ivey signed special election legislation and celebrated the order as a victory, announcing special primary elections for four congressional districts under the 2023 map. The state held those primaries under the 2023 map on May 19, 2026.
The three-judge panel held a hearing on May 22, 2026, to reconsider the cases under the Callais framework. Voting rights groups, including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the ACLU, filed emergency motions arguing the 2023 map remained unconstitutional because the intentional-discrimination finding rested on the 14th Amendment, not on VRA Section 2 alone. Four days later, the panel agreed.
The panel's May 26 ruling said: "We can't 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 judges wrote that their earlier constitutional analysis and conclusion, reached after a full trial, were "undisturbed by Callais." They found Alabama "can't use Callais to legitimize its pre-Callais decision to double down on the discriminatory vote dilution that we and the Supreme Court found."
The panel's intentional-discrimination finding rested on specific evidence from a 2025 trial record. The judges found the legislature "well knew" its 2023 map would dilute Black voters' political power and "intentionally enacted that very plan." Among the evidence: the legislature explicitly sought to protect a Gulf Coast community on the basis of its "French and Spanish colonial heritage," a decision the panel found was made at the expense of the large Black communities in Alabama's Black Belt region.
The Black Belt is a swath of central Alabama counties named for the dark, fertile soil that once made the region a center of cotton agriculture and enslaved labor. Today it's home to some of the highest concentrations of Black residents in Alabama and carries deep historical significance as a center of the civil rights movement. Selma is in the Black Belt. Under the court-ordered special-master map, Black Belt communities anchor Alabama's 2nd Congressional District.
Alabama's 2023 map would have given Republicans a realistic path to winning six of the state's seven congressional seats, returning Alabama to a 6R-1D delegation. Under the court-ordered map, the delegation splits 5R-2D, with Democratic Reps. Sewell and Figures holding the two majority-Black districts.
Rep. Shomari Figures, a Democrat who flipped the 2nd District in 2024, made Alabama the first state in its history to send two Black representatives to Congress simultaneously. The 2023 map shifted the 2nd District back into southeastern Alabama and diluted the concentration of Black voters to approximately 40% of the voting-age population, making it significantly harder for Black voters to elect a candidate of their choice.
Attorney General Steve Marshall called the panel's ruling "a clear defiance of the Supreme Court" and announced Alabama would "immediately appeal" to the Supreme Court. Marshall characterized the 2023 Republican-drawn map as "blandly unobjectionable" and argued the Callais decision should have cleared the way for its use.
Conservative commentators framed the ruling as district court judges defying the Supreme Court's signal. The Alabama Reflector noted that two of the three judges who blocked the map, Manasco and Moorer, were Trump appointees, a fact widely reported as significant given the political alignment of the decision.
Voting rights advocates celebrated the ruling while warning that the Supreme Court appeal makes the outcome uncertain for the November 2026 elections. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund said in a statement that the court had "again vindicated the constitutional rights of voters in the Black Belt" and blocked "a race-based congressional map that the legislature deliberately enacted to deny Black voters a voice in Congress."
The ACLU separately noted that the coalition had successfully blocked Alabama's attempted racial gerrymander that would have erased a congressional seat for Black Alabamians. A coalition of voting rights groups marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma on May 16, 2026, as part of a national day of action against southern redistricting efforts following Callais.
The case now heads to the Supreme Court on Alabama's emergency appeal. If the Supreme Court stays the panel's new injunction, Alabama could use the 2023 map for the November 2026 general elections, potentially flipping the 2nd District back to Republican control before the case reaches full merits review.
Legal analysts at the Brennan Center for Justice noted that intentional racial discrimination claims under the 14th Amendment operate independently of VRA Section 2. Even as Callais makes Section 2 claims harder to win, constitutional intentional-discrimination findings can survive. Democracy Docket called the ruling a significant holding that racial gerrymanders "tainted by Intentional DiscriminationA legal standard requiring proof that a government actor purposefully acted to discriminate.Key ConceptIntentional DiscriminationA legal standard requiring proof that a government actor purposefully acted to discriminate.Open concept" remain blocked even after Callais narrowed Gingles.
Related timeline
Republican Redistricting and Gerrymandering
Timeline of Republican efforts to control redistricting and gerrymandering, from the origin of the term "gerrymander" to modern mid-decade redistricting efforts. Covers key Supreme Court cases, state-level actions, and the coordinated strategy to gain electoral advantage through map manipulation.
Three-judge panel blocks Alabama's post-Callais map on 14th Amendment grounds
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A unanimous three-judge federal panel blocked Alabama from using its 2023 congressional map in the 2026 elections, finding it violated the 14th Amendment regardless of the Callais ruling's effect on VRA Section 2 claims. The panel wrote it "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 court reinstated the special master remedial map with two Black opportunity districts, which Alabama had used in the 2024 elections and May 2026 primaries. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall immediately announced plans to appeal to the Supreme Court.