Alabama officials asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to reinstate a Republican-backed congressional map that a lower court blocked one day earlier for intentionally discriminating against Black voters, the second time the same panel has struck down the same map. The emergency appeal, filed by Attorney General Steve Marshall, sets up yet another high-stakes redistricting clash at the nation's highest court with control of the House hanging in the balance ahead of November's midterm elections.
The filing came just hours after a three-judge district court panel found the state's 2023 map unconstitutional, ruling it carried "undisputed evidence" of intentional racial discrimination. Alabama wants the justices to act by Monday, The Washington Times reported, a timeline that reflects the urgency of an election calendar already in motion.
The state already held its regular primary earlier this month. Gov. Kay Ivey, anticipating the lower court would reimpose the court-drawn map, scheduled a special primary for August. If the Supreme Court sides with Alabama, that backup election may never happen, and Republicans could pick up a seat that flipped to Democrats under the court-ordered lines.
The dispute traces back to 2023, when the same district court first found Alabama's congressional map intentionally discriminated against Black voters. The court imposed its own remedial map, which created a second majority-Black or near-majority-Black congressional district out of seven total. Under those redrawn lines, Democrat Shomari Figures won election in 2024, giving Alabama two Black members of Congress simultaneously, alongside longtime Rep. Terri Sewell, for the first time in state history.
Alabama's Republican leadership never accepted that outcome as permanent. When the Supreme Court issued its ruling last month in Louisiana v. Callais, a landmark decision that struck down Louisiana's race-based congressional map and narrowed how states can use race in redistricting under the Voting Rights Act, Alabama moved fast to reimpose its original 2023 plan.
The lower court was unpersuaded. It blocked the map on Tuesday, concluding that the Callais decision changed nothing about the core finding of intentional discrimination.
In their emergency filing, Alabama officials pushed back hard, arguing the Supreme Court's Louisiana ruling "vindicates [Alabama's] position on the lawfulness of the 2023 plan." They added:
"Yet the district court decided in one week that Callais changed nothing."
State lawyers insisted the map "was lawful then [in 2023], and it is lawful now."
The political arithmetic is blunt. Alabama's GOP-drawn map contains only one majority-Black district out of seven, producing a likely 6-1 Republican-to-Democrat split. The court-ordered map, by contrast, includes two majority or near-majority Black districts and yielded a 5-2 split in the last cycle. Newsmax reported that the three-judge panel cited "undisputed evidence" of intentional racial discrimination, a finding the panel treated as independent of the Supreme Court's recent Voting Rights Act ruling.
Marshall told the court that the state did not intentionally discriminate against Black residents and should be allowed to hold elections under a map chosen by lawmakers, not judges. In the filing, Alabama framed the court-drawn map as itself a form of racial gerrymandering:
"[Alabama] and the public face irreparable harm unless a stay issues because they will be unable to use the State's 'duly enacted plans' for the 2026 election. Worse still, voters will be forced to vote under a court-drawn racially gerrymandered map that does not meet [Alabama's] legitimate districting goals."
That language flips the discrimination charge back at the judiciary, a move consistent with the broader conservative argument that race-conscious map-drawing, even when ordered by courts, violates equal protection principles.
Alabama is not acting in isolation. The Supreme Court's April 29 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais has triggered a wave of redistricting activity across Republican-led states. The Washington Examiner reported that Marshall filed three separate emergency petitions citing the Callais decision, and that GOP-led states including Louisiana, Florida, and Tennessee have rushed to redraw congressional maps in its wake.
The combined effect could net Republicans several House seats in a year when control of the lower chamber remains razor-thin. Louisiana suspended its May 16 congressional primary to give lawmakers time to redraw districts. Florida's Republican-led legislature approved new U.S. House maps hours after the Supreme Court ruling, a move that could help the GOP win up to four additional seats, according to Breitbart. President Trump has also pressed states like Texas and Tennessee to act quickly.
The pattern is clear: conservative states see the Callais decision as a green light to undo court-imposed racial gerrymanders, while Democrats view the same moves as an attempt to strip minority voters of hard-won representation. The Supreme Court will have to decide, case by case, where the line falls.
The broader redistricting fight has already produced sharp conflict at the Court itself. The justices recently sent two Voting Rights Act redistricting cases back to lower courts for reconsideration, signaling that the legal landscape remains unsettled even after Callais.
Adding weight to Alabama's appeal, the AP reported that the Trump administration's Justice Department backed the state's filing, arguing Alabama is "highly likely to succeed" in implementing the map favoring a 6-1 Republican advantage. Federal support from the executive branch gives the petition additional institutional heft, and signals that the administration views the lower court's racial-discrimination finding as legally vulnerable after Callais.
Democrats, predictably, see the situation differently. For them, the district court's twice-confirmed finding of intentional discrimination should end the debate. But the lower court's reasoning now sits in tension with a Supreme Court majority that has grown skeptical of race-based redistricting, even when ordered as a remedy.
The Court's willingness to entertain emergency redistricting petitions so close to election deadlines also reflects how deeply the justices are now embedded in the mechanics of American elections. In a separate case this term, the Court rejected Virginia Democrats' bid to force a new congressional map before the 2026 midterms, a decision that cut against progressive redistricting efforts.
Alabama has asked the Supreme Court to rule by Monday. If the justices grant a stay, the state's 2023 map goes back into effect for the 2026 cycle, and the special August primary becomes moot. If they deny it, voters will cast ballots under the court-drawn map, and Rep. Figures' district survives at least one more election.
The case has been before the Supreme Court twice now. Each round has raised the same core question: can a state legislature draw congressional lines that happen to reduce minority representation, or does the Voting Rights Act, even in its newly narrowed form, still forbid maps tainted by intentional discrimination?
Alabama's argument rests on a simple claim: the legislature, not a federal judge, should have the final say over how the state's voters are grouped into districts. Marshall's filing frames the court-drawn map as an imposition that overrides the democratic process. Opponents counter that the democratic process doesn't include the right to draw lines that a court has found, twice, were designed to dilute Black political power.
The political tensions around the Court have only intensified. One House Democrat recently filed an impeachment resolution against Chief Justice John Roberts, without attracting a single co-sponsor, in what amounted to a protest gesture against the Court's direction on voting rights and other issues.
Several questions remain unanswered. The specific districts and geographic areas affected by the map change have not been detailed publicly. The exact date of the special August primary has not been set. And the full scope of the Callais decision's reach, how many states, how many seats, how many legal challenges, is still unfolding in real time.
What is not in doubt is the scale of the stakes. Every seat matters in a closely divided House. Alabama's emergency appeal is one front in a much larger redistricting campaign that could reshape the balance of power in Congress for the rest of the decade.
Legislatures draw maps. Courts review them. That's the system. The question Alabama is forcing is whether courts have been substituting their own racial preferences for the legislature's lawful choices, and whether the Supreme Court is finally willing to say so.