Alabama Asks SCOTUS to Clear the Way for Republicans’ Redrawn Voting Map
On May 8, 2026, Governor Kay Ivey (R-AL)signed two bills passed by Alabama’s Republican-dominated legislature: a new congressional map that would eliminate the state’s court-ordered second majority-Black district, and a companion bill setting up a special do-over primary if the courts allow the map to take effect. Within hours, Attorney General Steve Marshall (R-AL) filed an emergency application at the U.S. Supreme Court asking Justice Clarence Thomas— who receives emergency matters from Alabama by default — to vacate the federal injunction blocking the state from using its legislature-approved lines.
The filing is a direct shot at the seat held by Rep. Shomari Figures (D-AL), a Democrat who won Alabama’s redrawn 2nd Congressional District in 2024 under a court-selected map — the first Black congressman from a court-mandated majority-Black Alabama district in roughly 150 years. Alabama’s Republican leadership is openly targeting that seat. As House Pro-Tem Chris Pringle (R-Mobile)put it, the goal is to “send seven Republican members to Congress” — up from the current five.
The legal opening came from the Supreme Court itself. On April 29, 2026, the Court decided Louisiana v. Callais6-3, restructuring how the Voting Rights Act’s Section 2 interacts with the Equal Protection Clause. Alabama, which had been fighting a court order to create a second majority-Black district since 2021, immediately moved to exploit it. The three-judge panel that had managed the case declined to lift its own injunction on May 8— and told the parties the fight now belonged to the Supreme Court.
- 75–29House voteAlabama House passes HB1 on party-line vote — 27 of 29 Democrats spoke against — Democracy Docket
- 3SCOTUS casesAG Marshall filed in Allen v. Singleton, Allen v. Milligan, and Allen v. Caster simultaneously — Alabama AG / SCOTUS Docket No. 25-273
- May 14target dateAG wants SCOTUS to act by May 14 — five days before Alabama's May 19 congressional primary — Alabama AG press release
- 27%Black VAPAlabama's Black voting-age population — enough for two majority-Black districts under the prior Gingles framework — Allen v. Milligan, SCOTUS (2023)
- 1district at stakeAL-2 — held by Rep. Shomari Figures (D), created by court order and targeted for elimination — NBC News / Alabama Reflector
Alabama’s seven congressional districts have had a majority-Black population of over 27% of voting-age residentssince the 2020 census — spread across a state where voters still vote in near-total racial alignment. Under the Thornburg v. Gingles (1986) framework that governed Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act for forty years, that created an obligation to draw at least two majority-Black districts if a compact, reasonably configured second district was possible. Challengers showed it was: they presented eleven example maps, each containing two such districts.
Alabama disagreed and drew only one majority-Black district. On June 8, 2023, the Supreme Court affirmed the lower-court injunction in Allen v. Milligan (No. 21-1086), 5-4. Writing for the majority: Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Dissenting: Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett.
“We are not aware of any other case in which a state legislature — faced with a federal court order declaring that its electoral plan unlawfully dilutes minority votes and requiring a plan that provides an additional opportunity district — responded with a plan that the state concedes does not provide that district.”
Three-judge federal panel · Northern District of Alabama · September 5, 2023
After the 2023 Milliganruling, Alabama’s Republican-controlled legislature met in special session. On July 21, 2023, it passed a replacement map that still had only one majority-Black district — a direct defiance of the federal court’s order. On September 5, 2023, the three-judge panel struck down that map for the second time and ordered a special master to draw court-approved lines. The panel’s language was unusually blunt: the state’s conduct was, in their words, without known precedent. In August 2025, the same three-judge panel made the injunction permanent through 2030, ordering Alabama to run on the court-selected map for the remainder of the decade.
The map drawn by the special master created AL-2 as a majority-Black congressional district stretching across Alabama’s Black Belt region — the rural counties running through the center and southwest of the state, historically named for their dark topsoil and now historically significant for their Black population.
Under this map, Rep. Shomari Figures (D-AL)won AL-2 in November 2024. He became the first Black congressman from a court-mandated majority-Black Alabama district in roughly 150 years, and gave Alabama two Black members of Congress for the first time in the state’s modern history. That seat is what Alabama’s Republican leadership is now asking the Supreme Court to help eliminate.
On April 29, 2026, the Supreme Court handed down Louisiana v. Callais(No. 24-109). The 6-3 majority — Justice Samuel Alito (author), Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett— held that Louisiana’s 2024 congressional map, which had been drawn under federal court order to create a second majority-Black district, was itself an unconstitutional racial gerrymander under the Equal Protection Clause.
The decision significantly reworked the forty-year-old Gingles framework. Before Callais, states with sufficient minority population and racial polarization faced near-automatic obligations to draw majority-minority districts. After Callais, that presumption is reversed: drawing a race-conscious district is itself vulnerable to an Equal Protection challenge. Civil-rights attorneys publicly estimated that up to 19 Democratic-held House seats nationwide rest on the prior framework.
Before Callais: under Gingles, states were required to draw majority-minority districts when Black voters were numerous, compact, and politically cohesive. Failing to do so exposed the state to a Section 2 VRA lawsuit.
After Callais: drawing a district because of race exposes the state to an Equal Protection racial-gerrymander claim. The same map the courts once ordered is now legally vulnerable. The legal posture flipped.
Alabama’s argument: the 2025 permanent injunction locking Alabama to the court-selected two-district map was itself the product of the old Gingles framework. Post-Callais, that injunction cannot stand. AG Marshall called it “race-based” and asked Justice Thomas to vacate it immediately.
Attorney General Steve Marshall (R-AL) moved on two tracks simultaneously. On April 30, 2026 — one day after Callais— he filed emergency motions in three separate redistricting cases pending before the Supreme Court: Allen v. Singleton (Docket No. 25-273), Allen v. Milligan, and Allen v. Caster. Each targeted the same permanent injunction from a different procedural angle.
On May 8, 2026, after the three-judge panel declined to stay its own order, Marshall filed a fresh emergency application with the Supreme Court asking the justices to act by May 14— five days before Alabama’s May 19 congressional primary. He argued that without a stay, Alabama would be locked into a primary on a map the Court’s own Callais ruling had effectively delegitimized. Justice Clarence Thomas, who handles emergency applications from Alabama by default, set a deadline of Monday for plaintiffs to file responses.
“The Supreme Court has now made clear that you cannot assume race and politics are the same thing — you have to actually show they're separate. Because the lower court's injunction cannot stand in light of the Supreme Court's ruling, we have asked the court to lift the injunction.”
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall (R) · May 2026
Secretary of State Wes Allen (R-AL)filed a companion motion on the same day — an unusual move for a secretary of state, reflecting the coordination across the entire Republican state-office apparatus. Marshall’s framing was explicit: the injunction was the product of a legal doctrine the Supreme Court had just repudiated. He called the court-selected map “race-based” and argued the lower-court panel had no authority to keep it in place once the legal predicate evaporated.
Gov. Kay Ivey (R-AL) called a special legislative session for May 5, 2026. The vehicle was House Bill 1, filed by House Pro-Tempore Chris Pringle (R-Mobile). The bill is conditional by design: it has no effect unless the Supreme Court lifts the injunction. If the Court acts, HB1 sets up a do-over special primary — meaning Alabama could scrap the May 19 primary results and hold a new election under the revised lines.
The House voted 75-29 to pass HB1 after more than four hours of floor debate. The vote was largely party-line: 27 of the 29 members of the House Democratic Caucus spoke against the bill, calling it an attempt to disenfranchise Black voters and disrupt an active election in which some ballots had already been cast. The full Senate followed. On May 8, Gov. Ivey signed both HB1 and a companion bill redrawing state Senate districts within hours of the final legislative vote.
“Alabama knows our state, our people and our districts best.”
Gov. Kay Ivey (R-AL) · special session announcement · May 1, 2026
Alabama currently sends five Republicans and two Democrats to Washington: the six-district Republican majority plus the court-ordered AL-2, held by Rep. Figures.
The legislature-approved 2023 map — the one Alabama wants to restore — would eliminate the second majority-Black district. AL-2 would become a majority-white, Republican-leaning seat. AL-1 (Gulf Coast), AL-2 (Black Belt region), and AL-7 (Birmingham corridor) are the districts most affected by the line changes.
Republican legislative leaders have stated the goal directly: “send seven Republican members to Congress.” That would be Alabama’s entire congressional delegation.
Rep. Shomari Figures (D-AL) told the Alabama Reflector on May 8 that he expects the courts to maintain the injunction. “The law is the law,” Figures said. “I don’t expect the Supreme Court to act in the way the governor and attorney general are hoping.”
On May 8, 2026, the same three-judge federal panel that has managed the Alabama redistricting fight since 2021 rejected the AG’s request to stay the permanent injunction. The panel did not issue a lengthy opinion: it concluded that the legal arguments raised by Callaisdid not, in the panel’s view, automatically dissolve an injunction that had been made permanent after years of litigation. The panel declined to lift its own order and told the parties the matter now belonged to the Supreme Court.
The National Redistricting Foundation — a group that helped fund the original Milliganlitigation — separately asked the Supreme Court to deny Alabama’s application, arguing that disrupting an active election in which ballots had already been cast would cause irreparable harm to the voters who participated in good faith under the existing court-ordered map.
If SCOTUS lifts the injunction by May 14:Alabama holds its May 19 primary under the existing court-ordered map (the primary cannot be stopped at that point), but HB1 kicks in. The state could void those primary results and hold a new special primary under the 2023 Republican-drawn lines — meaning candidates who won the May 19 ballot would face another election on different district boundaries.
If SCOTUS does not act by May 14:Alabama’s May 19 primary runs on the court-ordered map. HB1 has no effect. The redistricting fight continues in litigation, likely into 2027 and the next cycle.
What Justice Thomas holds:as the circuit justice for the Eleventh Circuit, Thomas receives Alabama’s emergency applications. He can rule unilaterally, refer the matter to the full Court, or — as he did on May 8 — set a deadline for the opposing party to respond. His dissent in Allen v. Milligan was the most forceful of the four dissenters; his Callaisposition is fully aligned with Alabama’s current argument.
Alabama’s fight against the second majority-Black district has been running continuously since 2021. The timeline below covers the full record from the Supreme Court’s first ruling through the May 2026 emergency filing.
Gov. Kay Ivey (R-AL)— called the special session, signed HB1 and the companion state Senate bill on May 8, 2026. Said publicly: “Alabama knows our state, our people and our districts best.”
AG Steve Marshall (R-AL)— filed emergency motions in three Supreme Court cases simultaneously on April 30. Filed the SCOTUS emergency application on May 8 after the lower court refused to act. Set the May 14 target for SCOTUS action.
Secretary of State Wes Allen (R-AL)— filed a companion motion with the Supreme Court on April 30, giving the effort full executive-branch coordination.
House Pro-Tempore Chris Pringle (R-Mobile) — authored and filed HB1 in the special session. Stated the legislative goal as “send seven Republican members to Congress.”
Justice Clarence Thomas(U.S. Supreme Court) — receives Alabama’s emergency applications as circuit justice for the Eleventh Circuit. Set a Monday response deadline for plaintiffs as of May 8, 2026. Dissented in Allen v. Milligan(2023) in support of Alabama’s original map.
Rep. Shomari Figures (D-AL)— first-term congressman for Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District. Won in 2024 under the court-ordered map. Former aide to Attorney General Merrick Garland. Figures told the Alabama Reflector on May 8 that he does not expect the Supreme Court to grant Alabama’s request and that the injunction should hold.
Alabama is not acting in isolation. The Callais ruling set off a wave of Republican redistricting moves across the South. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R-TN)called a separate special session on the same week to eliminate the state’s only Democratic congressional seat, held by Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN-9) in Memphis. At least four other Republican-led states have explored or initiated map changes since the April 29 ruling.
President Trump cheered Alabama’s move. He had already posted on Truth Social demanding Republican governors act after Callais, predicting gains of “twenty more seats” in the House if Republicans in enough states moved quickly enough. Alabama, with its multi-year legal record, is among the sharpest cases: the state had already defied a court order once, was locked into a permanent injunction, and now has a Supreme Court ruling it believes retroactively vindicates the maps its legislature drew in 2021 and 2023.
Alabama’s Republican government is asking six justices to erase what five justices ordered three years ago. The target is one seat — and one congressman — that only exists because the Court said Alabama had violated the Voting Rights Act. The Court that said so in 2023 no longer commands a majority on the underlying doctrine. Justice Clarence Thomas, who holds the pen on Alabama’s emergency application, dissented from the original order. Five days separate the Supreme Court’s deadline from Alabama’s May 19 primary. The next move is at One First Street.