Appeals Court Rules Alabama Congressional District Map Unconstitutional

A three-judge panel ruled that the Alabama legislature drew its Congressional district map to weaken Black votes, making the map unconstitutional and in violation of the Voting Rights Act.

The panel forbade use of the map in future elections. The panel was composed of federal District Court Judges Anna Manasco and Terry Moorer, and federal 11th Circuit Court of Appeals senior Judge Stanley Marcus.

The case is Allen versus Milligan which had already gone to the federal Supreme Court twice, which agreed Alabama’s congressional map drawn in 2021 was discriminatory. In 2023 the state legislature, which is controlled by Republicans, did not redraw the districts. To put a map that was more fair into place before the 2024 elections, court-appointed Special Master Richard Allen redrew the districts. This resulted in election of two Black people as Congressional representatives from the state out of a total of seven, which the court had deemed reasonably reflective of the proportion of Black people in Alabama.

Litigation continued. The panel of judges held a trial in February, leading to the ruling today. The ruling noted Alabama’s track record of not honoring court orders. “The Legislature knew what federal law required and purposefully refused to provide it, in a strategic attempt to checkmate the injunction that ordered it.”

For that very reason, plaintiffs asked the court to reinstate federal preclearance requirements in Alabama, enabled by Section 3 of the Voting Rights Act. Alabama has not been required to go through preclearance since the 2013 Supreme Court ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, another Alabama voting rights case. The absence of preclearance allowed the skewed redistricting to occur that led to the need for the current legal case.

Click here to read the 571 page ruling.