Alabama lawmakers will convene Monday afternoon for an astonishing eleventh-hour special session to prepare the state to use a gerrymandered map that dilutes the power of Black voters.
It’s part of a sweeping bid to give Republicans an advantage in the 2026 midterm elections.
The rapid-fire redistricting session would be unprecedented on its own. But just hours before the session was set to convene, Secretary of State Wes Allen (R) announced that Alabama would also move ahead with its May 19 primary election using the old map while it waits for two court decisions affecting voting districts.
That approach — which might require annulling the first vote and holding a second — will likely create confusion for many voters. It comes after President Donald Trump urged GOP officials in Southern states to follow a plan along those lines, adding: “If they have to vote twice, so be it.”
The stunning sequence of events underscores the contempt with which Republican officials have treated the democratic process as they scramble to take advantage of last week’s Supreme Court ruling allowing them to scrap majority-Black districts.
The hurried special session, called by Gov. Kay Ivey (R), comes on the heels of Wednesday’s U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) decision gutting the Voting Rights Act (VRA). Depending on what the legislature decides, Alabama could select a past map that the courts have already found to be a racial gerrymander and that eliminates one of the state’s two Black-majority, Democratic-held districts. Or, it could choose a new, even more gerrymandered one that eliminates both.
Alabama is one of three states — along with Louisiana and Tennessee — now racing to change maps after the SCOTUS ruling. Regardless of how exactly the states gerrymander, the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais means minority voters will face far steeper hurdles to proving that an electoral map unconstitutionally dilutes their voting power, a dangerous blow to decades of progress in minority political representation.
Legal hurdles
Despite holding the special session, Alabama lawmakers cannot yet take the step of enacting different maps because of ongoing litigation. In fact, the state is still bound by a court-ordered agreement to use its current remedial congressional map until 2030.
But in the wake of the Callais ruling, state officials rushed to filerequests asking the courts to allow Alabama to change maps for this year’s elections. One option is to revert to the 6-1 congressional map the state implemented before the court-ordered agreement. The other is to draw a new map in which all seven districts will likely be Republican, eliminating the state’s two majority Black districts.
House leader contacts.
https://alison.legislature.state.al.us/house-leaders-members
Senate leaders contacts.
https://alison.legislature.state.al.us/senate-leaders-members