Constitutional Law · Civil Rights · Elections · Electoral Systems·May 8, 2026
Alabama asks Supreme Court to strip its second Black district
Alabama races to erase its second Black congressional seat before May 19 primary
Photo: AP Photo/Kim Chandlersource ↗
On May 8, 2026, the Alabama legislature passed a congressional map with one Black-majority district instead of two. Within one hour, Attorney General Steve Marshall filed emergency applications directly to the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to vacate a federal injunction that required the state to keep two Black opportunity districts through 2030. The legislature also authorized Governor 
Kay Ivey to call special summer primaries in four congressional districts if the Court agrees, voiding results from the May 19 primary already underway. A three-judge federal panel in the Northern District of Alabama denied the state stay request the same afternoon, ruling only the Supreme Court had authority to act. Justice 
Clarence Thomas, the 📖circuit justice for the 11th Circuit, set a Monday deadline for plaintiffs to respond. The maneuver exploits the Supreme Court's April 29, 2026 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which gutted Section 2 of the 📖Voting Rights Act and made it far harder for minority voters to challenge racially discriminatory maps.
Key facts
The Alabama legislature convened in a special session called by Gov. Kay Ivey on May 1, 2026, and on May 8 passed House Bill 1 authorizing a replacement congressional map with one Black-majority district instead of two. The state had been under a federal court order since October 2023, the result of 
Allen v. Milligan, requiring it to maintain two districts where Black voters have a meaningful opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. Ivey signed the legislation the same afternoon, .
Within one hour of the legislature passing HB 1, Attorney General Steve Marshall filed emergency applications in three related cases, Milligan v. Allen, Caster v. Allen, and Singleton v. Allen, asking the Supreme Court to vacate the lower court injunction by May 14 at 10 a.m., five days before Alabama's May 19 primary. Marshall's 25-page filing argued the injunction can't be reconciled with Section 2 of the 📖Voting Rights Act as reinterpreted by the Court's .
The applications went directly to Justice Clarence Thomas, the 11th Circuit's 📖circuit justice. Thomas, who has dissented from every prior ruling requiring Alabama to maintain a second Black district, for plaintiffs to respond at 5 p.m. EDT.
A three-judge federal panel in the Northern District of Alabama, composed of 11th Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus, District Judge Anna Manasco, and District Judge Terry Moorer, denied Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen's emergency stay request the same day. The panel ruled it lacked jurisdiction: "We do not have the authority to issue an order that upends Alabama's status quo, especially in the middle of an election, while our injunction establishing that status quo is well under review in the nation's highest court," the judges .
The ruling sent the fight exclusively to the Supreme Court, where Thomas and the full conservative majority will decide whether to lift the injunction before the primary.
The new map is the same one Alabama drew in 2023, a map already struck down by a three-judge federal panel for failing to create a second Black opportunity district. The court-ordered replacement map it seeks to eliminate led to the , who became only the fourth Black person ever elected to Congress from Alabama. Figures won with 54.6% of the vote against Republican Caroleene Dobson.
If the Supreme Court lifts the injunction, the 2nd Congressional District would revert to boundaries designed to make it a Republican-leaning seat, and Figures' district would effectively cease to exist.
HB 1 authorizes Ivey to void primary results in four congressional districts, the 1st, 2nd, 6th, and 7th, and call summer replacement primaries if a court lifts the injunction. The 2nd district is Figures' seat. The 7th is held by Rep. Terri Sewell (D), Alabama's other Black member of Congress. A legislative over fiscal years 2026-2027, reimbursed to counties running the additional contests.
The move means some Alabamians could vote twice in congressional primaries, first under the court-ordered map on May 19, then again under the 2023 map if the Supreme Court acts. Absentee ballots were already being cast when the legislation passed.
The backdrop is Louisiana v. Callais, decided 6-3 on April 29, 2026. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion for Roberts, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, holding that Louisiana's second Black-majority congressional district was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander and that Section 2 of the 📖Voting Rights Act doesn't require states to draw majority-minority districts. Justice Elena Kagan dissented, joined by Sotomayor and Jackson.
Alito's opinion included a single line stating the ruling didn't affect Allen v. Milligan directly, but AG Steve Marshall immediately argued that Callais changed the legal standards so fundamentally that the Milligan injunction could no longer stand. The a tectonic shift that removes federal voting rights law as a constraint on 📖partisan gerrymandering in states where race and party are correlated.
Alabama's 📖redistricting history since 2021 is a record of escalating defiance of federal courts. The state drew its original 2021 map with one Black-majority district despite Black residents comprising 27% of the population. A three-judge panel blocked it in January 2022. The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision in Allen v. Milligan, upheld that ruling in June 2023. Alabama then drew a second 2023 map that the same federal panel struck down for still failing to create a genuine Black opportunity district. Only after a court-appointed special master drew a replacement map did the state hold elections under a compliant plan.
Alabama agreed, as part of settling the litigation, not to change its congressional map until after the 2030 Census unless the Supreme Court overturned the underlying case. AG Marshall now argues Callais effectively accomplished that.
Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton (D-Greensboro), a Black Democrat, confronted Republican colleagues on the Senate floor: "We have just only been voting since 1965, and you are now trying to take that voice away from us." State Rep. Pebblin Warren (D-Tuskegee) to argue the 📖redistricting effort replayed historical disenfranchisement. Protesters occupied the House gallery singing civil rights anthems; officers removed at least one demonstrator, prompting a recess.
Mitchell Brown, voting rights senior counsel at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, told American Community Media the Supreme Court "has all but said that Section 2 is nullified."
Alabama is one of at least four Southern states that rushed to redraw congressional maps within days of the Callais ruling. Tennessee enacted a new map on May 7, splitting Memphis into three Republican-leaning districts. Louisiana and South Carolina were mid-session when Alabama's bill passed. The noted that without federal VRA constraints, future limits on extreme gerrymanders depend on state constitutions and state courts.
The 📖Purcell principle, which holds that courts shouldn't change election rules close to an election to prevent voter confusion, cuts both ways here. AG Steve Marshall argued Purcell limits federal courts from blocking Alabama's legislation. Plaintiffs countered that voiding an in-progress election with absentee ballots already cast is exactly the kind of chaos Purcell was .
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