NRF Responds to Supreme Court Ruling on Alabama’s Congressional Map
Washington, D.C. – Today, the Supreme Court allows Alabama to use an intentionally racially discriminatory congressional map, drawn in 2023 to explicitly dilute the voting power of Black Alabamians. The National Redistricting Foundation (NRF) is directing litigation in Caster v. Allen and providing financial support on behalf of the Caster plaintiff group in this case.
“The Supreme Court’s shameful ruling allowing Alabama to move forward with a gerrymander that was drawn with the explicit intent to dilute Black voting power—as found by a panel of judges that included two Trump appointees—is an absolute affront to the founding principles of our democracy, and wipes out whatever was left of the Court’s credibility,” said Marina Jenkins, Executive Director of the National Redistricting Foundation. “This country deserves better, and we must continue to work toward federal legislation that not only bans partisan and racial gerrymandering but also ensures that our rights cannot be undermined by captured courts.”
ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND:
On behalf of the Caster plaintiff group, the NRF initiated Allen v. Milligan, the successful lawsuit that struck down Alabama’s 2021 congressional map for violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). In 2023, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to uphold and enforce Section 2 of the VRA in Allen v. Milligan, Alabama was ordered to enact a VRA-compliant congressional map that included two Black-opportunity districts.
At the time of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which gutted Section 2 of the VRA, Alabama’s congressional primary elections were already underway. Nevertheless, right after that decision, the Alabama Legislature went into special session to pass a bill that would cancel and reschedule the state’s ongoing primary elections in several congressional districts and to reinstate its 2023 gerrymander, which a federal district court ruled was unlawful and unconstitutional. Once the Supreme Court lifted the district court’s injunction of the 2023 map and remanded the case to the district court for further consideration in light of the Callais decision, Governor Kay Ivey called a special primary election for the 1st, 2nd, 6th, and 7th congressional districts under the reinstated gerrymander, which includes just one Black opportunity district—threatening ballots cast in those congressional districts on the state’s prior map.
In order to halt Alabama’s rush to gerrymander, the NRF-supported Caster plaintiffs asked the court for a temporary restraining order to prevent Alabama from canceling its primaries and a preliminary injunction to block the use of the previously invalidated congressional map. In May, a preliminary injunction hearing was held before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama to consider the plaintiffs’ request, and that court granted the injunction, preventing Alabama from reverting to its previously invalidated congressional gerrymander and ordered the state to hold the 2026 midterm elections on the current, court-adopted map, which includes two Black opportunity districts.
Alabama’s Secretary of State quickly sought an emergency stay of that ruling with the U.S. Supreme Court, which has granted the request.
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