The Alabama House voted Wednesday to approve a plan that would change the congressional district map during an active election, even though some votes in the May 19 primary have already been cast.
The hurried redistricting push was part of a last-minute attempt to roll back Black voters’ political representation in time for November midterm elections.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) called the special session Friday in response to the U.S. Supreme Court majority’s ruling last week in Louisiana v. Callais, which gutted the landmark Voting Rights Act and made it significantly more difficult for minority voters to prove that district maps dilute their voting power.
The GOP-controlled House voted 75-29 to greenlight the redistricting measure, which authorizes a new special election under a different congressional map if federal courts lift injunctions stopping the state from using the map it passed in 2023. Next, the measure goes to the Alabama Senate for a vote.
The Alabama Senate is scheduled to take its final vote Wednesday evening on a similar measure that would change the state senate map if a federal court lifts an injunction stopping the state from using its 2021 map. If approved, it will then go to the House for consideration.
Alabama is one of four Southern states currently jumping through legislative hoops to put new maps in place for the 2026 election in the eleventh hour. Louisiana, Tennessee and South Carolina are all at different stages of redistricting attempts.
But unlike some other states, it is bound by a legal agreement to use a court-ordered congressional map until 2030.
In the wake of Callais, state officials have filed multiple requests with federal courts asking that injunction be lifted immediately so the state can use congressional and state senate maps that were previously struck down for violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Ahead of the final vote, State Rep. Adline Clarke (D) addressed an emotional speech to her Republican colleagues, saying she was “in a state of dismay and outrage” and felt “a deep sense of betrayal.”
“How will Black Alabama voters feel if they have already cast an absentee ballot in this election cycle that is happening as we speak, only to find out their vote has been nullified, especially when the state of Alabama is under court order not to do anything in regards to redistricting until 2030?” Clarke said. “This bill, HB 1, will have the effect of purposely diluting the power of the Black vote by denying Black voters the ability to elect the candidate of their choice.”
“It’s a tragic step backwards for Black Alabama voters,” Clarke added.
House Democrats stressed that the legislative maneuver wasn’t an isolated assault on voting rights, but part of a long history of suppressing Black voters in Alabama.
State Rep. Barbara Drummond (D) accused State Rep. Chris Pringle (R), the sponsor of the bill, of perpetuating long-standing racism at the expense of Black Alabamians’ futures.
She said it hurts her that Pringle and his Republican colleagues don’t want her daughter and grandchildren “to have the future that we all know they deserve.”
Drummond added that she and other Democrats won’t give up the fight. “You might win this battle today, but you remember, for me, joy comes in the morning,” she said.
