Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey announced Friday she is calling the state legislature back for a special session Monday to redraw the state's congressional map, a move that could flip a Democratic-held seat to Republicans before the 2026 midterms.
The session hinges on whether the U.S. Supreme Court lifts an injunction it imposed in Allen v. Milligan, the landmark case that forced Alabama to maintain a majority-Black congressional district. Earlier this week, the high court's decision in Louisiana v. Callais placed new restrictions on racial gerrymandering that created majority-Black districts across the South, and Alabama's Republican leadership moved fast to seize the opening.
Ivey's proclamation directs the Legislature of the State of Alabama to convene at 4:00 p.m. on Monday, May 4, at the Alabama State House in Montgomery. The Daily Caller reported that the governor issued the proclamation Friday, the same day Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court asking the justices to lift the Milligan injunction in light of the Callais ruling.
Ivey's language is precise. The proclamation states that the legislature "may consider legislation to provide for a special primary election for electing members of the United States House of Representatives and the Alabama State Senate in districts whose boundary lines are altered by a court issuing a judgment, vacating an injunction, or otherwise ordering or permitting an alteration in the boundaries of such districts."
In a Friday statement obtained by the Alabama Reflector, Ivey framed the session as a matter of readiness rather than defiance:
"By calling the Legislature into a special session, I am ensuring that Alabama is prepared should the courts act quickly enough to allow Alabama's previously drawn congressional and state senate maps to be used during this election cycle."
She added that if the court-ordered injunction is lifted, Alabama would revert to maps drawn by the legislature for congressional districts in 2023 and state districts in 2021. The 2023 map is the most likely outcome if the injunction falls and the legislature acts.
The practical effect is straightforward. Reverting to the legislature's 2023 map would significantly alter Alabama's 2nd congressional district, currently a fairly solid Democratic seat, and reshape it into a district likely to be won by Republicans. That is one seat in a midterm cycle where every House district matters.
The Milligan injunction forced Alabama to maintain district lines that grouped Black voters into a majority in the 2nd District. The Supreme Court's Callais decision this week, which imposed tighter limits on race-based redistricting, gave Alabama's attorneys the legal foothold they needed to challenge that injunction directly. Marshall's emergency appeal, filed late Thursday, asks the justices to do exactly that.
The broader Supreme Court ruling on Louisiana's race-based congressional map has sent ripple effects through several Southern states. Alabama is moving fastest, but it is not alone.
Mississippi and Tennessee may also move to redraw their maps in the coming days. South Carolina is reportedly considering a special session of its own. Georgia, with its primaries just over two weeks away, appears to be opting for a longer timeline, adopting new congressional maps before the 2028 election rather than rushing to change them for 2026.
The split between states that act now and those that wait will shape the 2026 midterm battlefield. Alabama's decision to convene in days, not weeks, signals a legislature that sees a narrow window and intends to use it.
Redistricting fights have consumed both parties in recent years. Virginia Republicans mounted a multi-front legal challenge to protect their House majority after a razor-thin redistricting vote, while Democrats have used the courts aggressively to draw favorable maps in states where they hold leverage.
What makes Alabama's move distinct is the legal sequence. The governor is not acting unilaterally. She is positioning the legislature to respond the moment the Supreme Court acts, if it acts. The proclamation itself is contingent. No new map takes effect unless the injunction falls.
Attorney General Steve Marshall's filing late Thursday is the linchpin. Without the Supreme Court lifting the Milligan injunction, the special session has no map to adopt. Marshall's argument rests on the Callais decision, which tightened the standard for when race can be used as a predominant factor in drawing district lines.
The timing is aggressive. Marshall filed the emergency appeal less than a week after Callais came down. Ivey issued her proclamation the next day. The legislature convenes three days after that. Alabama's Republican leadership is clearly coordinating to compress the timeline as much as the courts will allow.
Democrats, meanwhile, have framed redistricting battles as fights over voting rights and minority representation. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has talked tough on redistricting in recent months, casting Republican map-drawing as an assault on fair elections. But the Supreme Court's own rulings are now the ones reshaping the landscape, and they are moving in a direction that favors legislatures over race-conscious line-drawing.
Alabama's special session is one piece of a larger redistricting realignment playing out across the South. The Callais decision did not merely affect Louisiana. It handed Republican-led legislatures in multiple states a fresh legal basis to challenge maps that were drawn or maintained under older, more permissive standards for racial considerations in redistricting.
If the Supreme Court grants Marshall's emergency request and lifts the Milligan injunction, Alabama's legislature could adopt the 2023 map and schedule a special primary, all before the 2026 midterms. That would flip the political composition of the state's congressional delegation before a single voter casts a general-election ballot.
Other states are watching closely. Missouri's Supreme Court recently upheld GOP redistricting authority in a closely divided ruling, reinforcing the principle that state legislatures, not courts or commissions, hold the primary power to draw district lines. Alabama's gambit tests that principle in real time, under the highest possible stakes.
Open questions remain. The Supreme Court has not yet acted on Marshall's emergency appeal. No timeline for a ruling has been made public. And even if the injunction is lifted, the legislature would still need to pass legislation and set a special primary date, all on a compressed schedule before November.
Ivey's framing is deliberate. She cast the special session as preparation, not confrontation. Her statement emphasized readiness, making sure Alabama can act "should the courts act quickly enough." The proclamation itself is conditional, authorizing legislation only for districts "whose boundary lines are altered by a court issuing a judgment, vacating an injunction, or otherwise ordering or permitting an alteration."
That language matters. It ties the legislature's hands to the judiciary's timeline. Alabama is not redrawing its map in defiance of a court order. It is positioning itself to redraw the map the moment a court order permits it.
Critics will call it a power grab. But the governor's legal argument is simple: the Supreme Court changed the rules this week, and Alabama wants to play by the new ones as fast as possible. Whether the justices agree, and how quickly, will determine whether Alabama's 2nd District looks the same on Election Day or becomes the first concrete result of the post-Callais redistricting wave.
When the highest court in the land changes the legal standard, the states that move first set the terms. Alabama is not waiting to be told what to do. It is standing at the door, ready to walk through the moment it opens.