A demonstrator holds a placard outside the Alabama State Capitol on Thursday, May 7, 2026 in Montgomery, Alabama.
Kim Chandler | AP
A federal judge on Monday blocked Alabama from using a congressional district map that would dilute the Black vote in the 2026 midterm elections.
The ruling in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Alabama, found that the map “intentionally discriminates on the basis of race” and sets the stage for the Supreme Court to decide whether the map, first proposed in 2023, can be used in Alabama this year.
The decision is a likely temporary victory for Democrats, who aim to win a majority in the House of Representatives in November’s elections. Earlier this month, the Virginia Supreme Court blocked publication of the state’s Democratic-leaning congressional district maps approved in a statewide referendum in April.
Republicans launched a series of legislative redistricting moves last year to maintain their slim majority in the House. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law on May 4 creating new congressional maps that are expected to help Republicans gain control of four additional House districts from the state.
Alabama’s three-judge panel issued the ruling in response to an order to the Supreme Court to reconsider the question of whether the map can be used in light of the high court’s recent decision in a case known as Louisiana v. Calais, which found that Louisiana’s drawing of its own congressional map constituted racial gerrymandering.
The panel’s two judges, Anna Manasco and Terry Moorer, were appointed by President Donald Trump. The third judge, Stanley Marcus, was appointed first by President Ronald Reagan to the U.S. District Court and then by President Bill Clinton to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, where he currently sits.
The commission noted that it had previously ruled that Alabama’s district maps “violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965, intentionally discriminate against black voters on the basis of race, and violate the 14th Amendment.”
The ruling came four days after the commission heard oral arguments on the map.
“In our view, the irreducible minimum is that federal law requires that all Alabamians have the opportunity to vote on a districting plan that is untainted by intentional race-based discrimination,” the committee said.
“We do not intervene in national politics lightly, but after reviewing the incontrovertible evidence to date, there is no question that Alabama’s legislatively enacted plan (‘Plan 2023’) violates the Constitution and intentionally discriminates on the basis of race,” the committee said. “Reexamining it from a Calais perspective yields the same conclusion. Once again we can only understand the 2023 Plan as deliberately discriminatory.”
CNBC has reached out to the Alabama Attorney General’s Office for comment.
