Alabama AG Steve Marshall files Supreme Court challenge that could reshape redistricting nationwide

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has taken the redistricting fight straight to the Supreme Court, filing a challenge that seeks to overturn a lower-court injunction and hand map-drawing power back to the state legislature, a move that could cost Democrats a congressional seat and set a precedent reaching well beyond Alabama's borders.

Marshall's filing asks the high court to lift an injunction tied to the Allen v. Milligan case, which previously forced Alabama to adopt a court-ordered map with two majority-Black congressional districts instead of the single district drawn by Republican lawmakers. The attorney general argues that the Supreme Court's recent ruling in a Louisiana redistricting case, known as Callais, has effectively gutted the legal foundation beneath that injunction.

As Fox News Digital reported, Marshall told the outlet he was "thrilled" by the Callais decision at the end of April, calling it a framework Alabama can use to defend the maps its legislature drew in both 2021 and 2023.

"Now they have a framework for Alabama to directly defend what the legislature did both in 2021 and 2023. And that is, drawing maps based on historical redistricting principles that now I think Callais makes clear were constitutional exercises of that authority."

The stakes are not abstract. If the Supreme Court grants Marshall's request, Alabama could revert to a map with just one majority-Black district, creating an opening for Republicans to pick up a U.S. House seat as early as this fall. Democrats, who have leaned heavily on Voting Rights Act challenges to pry open favorable districts in red states, would lose one of their most prominent legal victories of the current redistricting cycle.

The legal mechanics: injunction, three-judge panel, and two fronts

Marshall laid out the procedural path in plain terms. Unlike Louisiana, which received direct relief through the Callais ruling, Alabama must first persuade a three-judge panel to remove the existing injunction against its prior map. Only then can the state either restore the challenged map or allow the legislature to draw a new one.

"And then unlike Louisiana, which was able to get direct relief through that decision, we now have to be removed from the injunction [against Alabama's prior map] by the three-judge panel in order to either go back to the map that is being challenged or give the legislature the authority to draw a new map."

Marshall framed the request as a matter of equal treatment among the states. His formal position could not be clearer.

"Because the lower court's injunction cannot stand in light of the Supreme Court's ruling, we have asked the court to lift the injunction. Alabama deserves the right to use its own maps, just like every other state."

The AP reported that the Supreme Court has already cleared the way for Alabama to potentially scrap the court-ordered map with two largely Black districts and revert to the Republican-drawn map with only one. Republican House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter called the development "a massive victory not just for Alabama, but for conservatives across the country."

Marshall himself told reporters his goal was to help the legislature draw a congressional map that "favors Republicans seven-to-zero." That kind of candor is rare in redistricting litigation, where both parties typically dress up partisan ambition in the language of fairness and community interest.

The broader redistricting pattern

Alabama is not fighting alone. The Supreme Court's Louisiana ruling in Callais struck down a map that included districts centered on New Orleans and a narrow majority-minority corridor stretching from Baton Rouge, a configuration conservatives argued was itself a racial gerrymander dressed up as a Voting Rights Act remedy. That ruling, and Justice Thomas's call to end race-based redistricting entirely, signaled a shift in the court's appetite for Section 2 challenges.

Marshall pointed to Justice Kavanaugh's earlier concurrence in the Milligan case as a harbinger of where the court was heading.

"You saw some of that sentiment from Justice Kavanaugh in a concurrence in the [Milligan] case that Alabama had there a few years ago, saying there's a point in time in which we have to acknowledge that circumstances have changed."

That observation matters. For years, Democrats and allied legal groups have treated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act as a near-automatic tool for forcing the creation of additional majority-minority districts in Southern states. The Callais ruling cracked that assumption. Marshall's filing in Alabama could break it open further.

Virginia offers another instructive example. The Virginia Supreme Court voided Democratic redistricting maps in a separate case, dealing another blow to the party's House strategy. Marshall referenced Richmond's experience, noting the fallout after Virginia's high court struck down the Democratic-led redistricting map there.

Democrats' double standard on representation

Marshall reserved some of his sharpest commentary for what he described as a glaring inconsistency in the Democratic argument. Progressives insist that Black voters in Alabama deserve proportional representation through majority-minority districts. But they make no such argument for Republican voters in deep-blue New England states.

"[They're] arguing for proportional representation, which is basically what they are saying, they make that same argument in Maine, in Rhode Island, in New Hampshire, where you don't see a single congressional member there from the Republican Party."

The numbers bear out his point. Republicans hold roughly 30% of the vote in Maine. Donald Trump won about the same share in Vermont in 2024. Across Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, Republican vote share ranges between 10% and 40%, with more than 40% of voters in those states registered as unaffiliated. Yet not a single Republican holds a congressional seat in any of those states.

Nobody in Washington is filing Voting Rights Act lawsuits to carve out a Republican-leaning district in Providence or Hartford. The principle of proportional representation, it seems, applies only when it benefits Democrats. Marshall called the selective application of that principle exactly what it is, a political strategy, not a legal one.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court halted a separate Democrat-led effort to redraw a Staten Island district before the midterms, adding to a growing list of judicial setbacks for progressive redistricting ambitions.

On the ground in Alabama: special session and a looming primary

Alabama state lawmakers were in special session through Friday to address the legislative side of the redistricting fight. Marshall said his office remains "singularly focused" on the legal front, securing relief from the 2023 injunction as quickly as possible, while the legislature handles the political mechanics.

"While we'll obviously watch what the legislature is doing, our job is to secure the relief from the [2023 redistricting] injunction as quickly as possible."

The fight extends beyond the congressional map. Marshall disclosed that a state Senate district map was also subject to redrawing based on a separate Section 2 challenge. His office is pursuing that battle in the New Orleans-based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals while simultaneously seeking Supreme Court review on the congressional front.

"And the other thing, not only are we working on the state congressional map, but it's also, we have a state Senate district [map] likewise that was subject to redrawing based upon a [Voting Rights Act] Section 2 challenge."

Marshall described the court-imposed redrawing as "clearly [done] for hyper-political reasons that kept none of the traditional principles in mind." That language echoes a broader conservative complaint: that courts have allowed political actors to weaponize the Voting Rights Act to override legitimate legislative map-drawing, substituting judicial preferences for democratic ones.

Secretary of State Wes Allen indicated the May 19 primary will go on as expected, meaning the legal maneuvering has not disrupted the immediate election calendar, though the outcome of Marshall's Supreme Court challenge could reshape Alabama's congressional landscape well before voters head to the polls this fall.

The political backdrop

Marshall is running to succeed retiring Sen. Tommy Tuberville this fall, adding a personal political dimension to his legal crusade. But the national implications dwarf any single Senate race. If the Supreme Court lifts the Alabama injunction, it will signal that the era of court-ordered majority-minority districts, at least as Democrats have wielded them, may be drawing to a close.

Democrats have not been idle. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey descended on Alabama to push back, appearing at a counter-redistricting forum in Birmingham alongside Mayor Randall Woodfin and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Doug Jones. Fox News Digital reached out to Booker earlier this week and did not receive a response. The Obama camp condemned the Louisiana ruling that set this chain of events in motion, framing it as a retreat from civil rights protections.

But condemnation is not a legal strategy. And right now, the legal momentum belongs to Alabama.

For decades, redistricting law has been a one-way ratchet, courts ordering more majority-minority districts, never fewer, and always in states where Republicans hold the legislature. Marshall's filing asks the Supreme Court a simple question: if the legal basis for that ratchet has changed, shouldn't the maps change too? The answer may determine who controls the U.S. House.