About 27% of the Yellowhammer State is black, but only one of Alabama's seven districts is designed in a way where those voters have a strong chance to elect the candidate they prefer.
In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against Alabama in Allen v. Milligan, saying the map probably violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and ordered the state to redraw its map to create a second district that would go on to elect a black Democrat.
But after the Supreme Court ruled in April that Louisiana's case weakened how the Voting Rights Act applies to redistricting, Alabama asked the Court to revisit that old ruling.
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court sided with Alabama and allowed the state to move forward with a map that has only one majority-black district ahead of the midterm elections.
"I think the idea that they would carve out Democrat districts in the name of civil rights was ridiculous from the start," comments Rich Holt, a political consultant and member of the Project 21 Black Leadership Network. "The Supreme Court recognizing there was a difference between racial gerrymandering and partisan gerrymandering really worked well in our favor there."
But Holt, who recently served as political director with the Alabama Republican Party, points out that this was not a complete victory.
"Complete victory would have been allowing the 7th District in Alabama to get back to where it should be as well, which would be a probably more 50-50 district versus a plus-20 Democrat, which is where it is," he submits.
The 7th Congressional District cuts diagonally across west-central Alabama. It links parts of Birmingham, Tuscaloosa and portions of the Montgomery area with rural counties and has long been Alabama's primary majority-black district.
"Them having carved that out that way is still very unnatural, but the 2nd Congressional District being rebalanced and adjusting the district below it, the 1st Congressional District as well, really does help better represent the people in the community and create more natural-looking districts," Holt adds.
The 2nd Congressional District runs from parts of the Mobile area across much of south-central Alabama and into the Montgomery region.
The Supreme Court ruling does not eliminate any congressional districts or their voters. Alabama will still have seven congressional districts, but the boundaries could be redrawn so black voters who were concentrated in the second opportunity district are redistributed among other districts.
Supporters of the ruling say districts should not be drawn mainly based on race, that states should have more control over their own maps and that the Constitution requires treating voters equally regardless of race.
Critics say the ruling weakens protections for minority voters.
The decision could affect other southern states because congressional maps can decide which party wins seats in Congress, which means these rulings could also affect which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives.
