Alabama keeps facing gerrymandering lawsuits because its congressional and state senate maps have repeatedly been found to dilute Black voting strength under the federal Voting Rights Act, and the legislature has resisted drawing a second Black-opportunity congressional district even after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered it to. The most recent Alabama gerrymandering lawsuit cycle produced a historic court-drawn map for 2024, then a 2026 Supreme Court decision letting the state revert to the legislature’s version. The fight is not over.
The Federal Law That Drives Every Suit
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, at 52 U.S.C. § 10301, bars any state from drawing district lines in a way that denies or weakens a citizen’s right to vote based on race.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 52 USC 10301 – Denial or Abridgement of Right to Vote on Account of Race or Color It does not guarantee proportional representation. What it does require is a political process equally open to protected groups.
To win a vote-dilution claim, plaintiffs must satisfy the three-part test from Thornburg v. Gingles. The minority group has to show it is large and compact enough to form a majority in a reasonably drawn district; that its members vote cohesively; and that the white majority votes as a bloc in a way that usually defeats the minority’s preferred candidates.2Justia. Thornburg v Gingles, 478 US 30 (1986) The test is designed to detect two gerrymandering tactics: “cracking” minority voters across many districts so they are a majority nowhere, and “packing” them into one district to cap their influence.
Those three conditions are met in Alabama with unusual clarity, which is why litigation keeps landing there rather than other states.
The 2021 Congressional Map and Allen v. Milligan
After the 2020 census, Alabama’s legislature redrew its seven congressional districts and produced a map with only one majority-Black district — the 7th — despite Black residents being about 27 percent of the state’s population. The 2nd Congressional District, covering much of the historically Black Belt, had a Black Voting Age Population of roughly 30 percent. Voters and civil rights groups sued, arguing a second opportunity district was clearly feasible.
In June 2023, the Supreme Court ruled 5–4 in Allen v. Milligan that the map likely violated Section 2.3Supreme Court of the United States. Allen v Milligan, 600 US 1 (2023) All three Gingles preconditions were satisfied. Plaintiffs had produced eleven illustrative maps showing a second majority-Black district could be drawn while respecting compactness and county boundaries. The Court rejected Alabama’s argument that its map was defensible because it resembled race-neutral alternatives, and held that the Voting Rights Act sometimes requires a race-conscious approach to remedy dilution.
Many observers had expected the conservative majority to narrow Gingles. Instead, Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion reaffirmed it. The case went back to the lower court with instructions that Alabama had to create a second district where Black voters had a genuine opportunity to elect their preferred representatives.
What Happened When Alabama Refused to Comply
In July 2023, the legislature passed a new map that raised the Black Voting Age Population in the 2nd District only to about 42.5 percent, well below what the ruling envisioned. A federal three-judge panel rejected it. With the legislature unwilling to produce a compliant plan, the court stripped the state of its mapmaking authority and appointed a Special Master, Richard Allen, a former Alabama Department of Corrections commissioner, to design a remedial map.
The court selected one of Allen’s three plans in October 2023, and it governed the 2024 elections. The redrawn 2nd District ran from Mobile County through the southern Black Belt to the Georgia border, with a Black Voting Age Population of about 48.7 percent. The 7th District remained majority-Black at roughly 52 percent. In November 2024, Shomari Figures won the 2nd District seat, and Alabama had two Black members of Congress serving simultaneously for the first time in state history.
The 2026 Supreme Court Reversal
The result did not hold. Alabama appealed, and in 2026 the Supreme Court sided with the state, clearing the way for Alabama to use the legislature’s 2023 map — the same map the lower courts had rejected — for the 2026 elections. The Court indicated Alabama was “likely to succeed on the merits,” which signaled the justices may be reconsidering how aggressively Section 2 can be used to require opportunity districts. The legislature then authorized a special primary election for the affected congressional districts.
The case is still in litigation and the lower court could still rule on the merits. For 2026, though, Alabama will hold elections under boundaries that federal judges previously found insufficient. In the 2nd District, the difference between the two maps may well decide whether the seat stays competitive.
The State Senate Case
The congressional fight is not the only one. In August 2025, a federal court ruled in Alabama State Conference of the NAACP v. Allen that the state’s 2021 Senate districting plan violated Section 2 in the Montgomery area.4FindLaw. Alabama State Conference of NAACP v Allen (2025) The court found the legislature had packed Black voters into Senate District 26 in unnecessarily large numbers, diluting their influence in neighboring districts.
A Special Master drew a remedy, and the court adopted “Remedial Plan 3,” which moves some Black voters from District 26 into District 25. The fix is narrow, affecting only about 2.4 percent of Alabama voters while leaving every other senate district alone. The remedial plan will govern Alabama’s 2026 and 2030 state senate elections, and any special elections, until the legislature redraws districts based on the 2030 census.
Why the Suits Keep Coming
Alabama’s demographics make vote-dilution claims unusually easy to prove. Black residents are about 27 percent of the population and are concentrated in specific areas, particularly the Black Belt, a crescent of counties across central Alabama where African Americans often make up half or more of the population. That concentration means a second opportunity district is geographically plausible, which is exactly what the first Gingles prong requires a plaintiff to demonstrate.
Alabama’s elections also show significant racial polarization, satisfying the second and third Gingles prongs. Black voters and white voters tend to support different candidates, and the white majority is large enough to consistently outvote Black-preferred candidates in most districts. When those conditions exist and a second opportunity district can be drawn without contorting the map, failing to draw one looks like intentional dilution. The legislature’s repeated refusal to create one, even after the Supreme Court told it to, turned a redistricting dispute into a years-long constitutional confrontation.
What This Means for the 2026 Elections
Whichever map ultimately governs, the calendar is already running. Alabama’s 2026 primary is set for May 19, 2026, and the major-party qualifying deadline was January 23, 2026.5Secretary of State of Alabama. FCPA Filing Calendar 2026 Election Cycle Primary candidates were allowed to begin fundraising on May 19, 2025, and independents targeting the general election on November 3, 2025. The boundaries under which candidates filed and voters will cast ballots remain subject to ongoing litigation, making this one of the most uncertain election cycles in the state’s recent history.