Alabama's legislature drew a congressional map, got told by the Supreme Court it violated the Voting Rights Act, redrew it in ways that changed almost nothing, and has now been told—again—that the map is unlawful. The state's apparent strategy of procedural attrition is not novel, but its brazenness is remarkable even by the standards of the post-Shelby County South.
A three-judge federal panel ruled Monday that Alabama's revised House map still fails to provide Black voters, who comprise roughly 27 percent of the state's population, with a fair opportunity to elect representatives of their choice. The decision marks the second rejection of the state's redistricting efforts since the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling in Allen v. Milligan, which affirmed that Alabama had diluted Black voting power by packing Black communities into a single majority-minority district while scattering the rest across white-majority seats.
The compliance gap
After Milligan, Alabama's Republican-controlled legislature was ordered to create a second district where Black voters could meaningfully compete. Instead, lawmakers produced a map with one majority-Black district and a second that was only about 40 percent Black—a proportion experts testified was insufficient to give Black voters electoral influence. The court found this fell short of the remedy the Supreme Court had mandated, calling the state's justifications unpersuasive.
The ruling does not automatically impose a new map, but it sets a tight timeline for the legislature to try again before the 2026 midterms. If Alabama fails to comply, the court retains authority to impose its own plan—a scenario the state has been daring judges to pursue.
A broader pattern
Alabama is not alone. Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina have all faced or are facing litigation over maps that critics say dilute minority voting strength. But Alabama's case has become the flagship example of how states can stretch the judicial process, forcing plaintiffs to relitigate the same issues cycle after cycle. Each delay means another election conducted under maps that courts have deemed discriminatory.
The Supreme Court's Milligan decision was supposed to demonstrate that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act retained teeth even after Shelby County gutted preclearance requirements. Alabama's response has been to test how dull those teeth really are.
Our take
There is a point at which defiance of judicial orders stops looking like federalism and starts looking like nullification. Alabama crossed that line when it responded to a Supreme Court loss by drawing a map that a first-year law student could see violated the ruling. The state is betting that the federal judiciary lacks the stamina or the political will to enforce voting rights against a determined legislature. So far, the courts have not blinked—but the cost of that vigilance is borne by Black Alabamians who have now spent three years waiting for representation the Constitution promises them.
