Justice Clarence Thomas declined to immediately restore Alabama's legislature-drawn congressional map on Wednesday but gave voting rights challengers until Monday to explain why a court-imposed map should remain in place, a move that puts Democrats and their legal allies on a tight clock in one of the most consequential redistricting fights in the country.
The order came one day after a three-judge federal district court blocked Alabama's 2023 map for a second time and directed that a special-master-drawn map continue to govern the state's congressional boundaries. That special-master map created a second Black-opportunity district, reshaping the political landscape enough to flip a previously Republican-held seat to Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures in 2024.
Thomas, who handles emergency applications from the 11th Circuit, stopped short of granting Alabama Republicans the immediate relief they sought. But his order, requiring plaintiffs to justify the court-drawn map on an accelerated timeline, signals that the full Court may soon weigh in again.
The dispute traces back to Alabama's post-2020-census redistricting. Voting rights challengers, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, argued the legislature's map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by failing to create a second district where Black voters could elect their preferred candidate. A lower court agreed and eventually installed a map drawn by a court-appointed special master.
That judicially imposed map transformed Alabama's 2nd Congressional District. Where Republicans once held the seat comfortably, the redrawn lines produced a Democratic pickup. Rep. Figures won the district in 2024, a result that would almost certainly not have occurred under the legislature's own plan.
For conservatives who believe elected legislators, not unelected special masters, should draw district lines, the Alabama case has become a flashpoint. Thomas himself has long argued for a narrower reading of the Voting Rights Act in redistricting contexts, a position he has pressed in recent concurrences urging the Court to strip the Act from redistricting entirely.
The legal terrain shifted dramatically in April when the Supreme Court ruled in Louisiana v. Callais, narrowing the interpretation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The decision made it harder for voting rights activists to force states to create additional majority-minority districts, handing Republicans what Fox News correspondent Chad Pergram described as a "new weapon" against maps drawn by left-wing legal groups.
Armed with that ruling, Alabama moved fast. On May 11, the Supreme Court vacated the lower court's judgment blocking the state's 2023 map and sent the case back for reconsideration in light of Callais.
That should have been the opening Alabama Republicans needed. But the lower court had other ideas.
On Tuesday, the same three-judge panel blocked the legislature's map again and ordered the special-master map to remain in effect. Fox News reported that the lower court's reasoning for defying the Supreme Court's remand was not detailed in available reporting. Alabama's Republican attorney general, Steve Marshall, filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court the same day, asking for immediate relief.
In its emergency application, Alabama did not mince words. The state argued that the lower court's Tuesday ruling "defies Callais, manipulates the Purcell principle, and offends the Constitution's promise of equal protection for all."
The Purcell principle, a doctrine that generally discourages federal courts from changing election rules too close to an election, cuts both ways here. Alabama contends the lower court is using timing as a shield to preserve a map that the Supreme Court has already signaled should be reconsidered. The state wants to move forward with its own legislature-drawn lines.
Gov. Kay Ivey reinforced that position by calling August 11 special primaries for four affected congressional districts, the 1st, 2nd, 6th, and 7th, declaring the state ready to proceed under its own map. The special primaries underscore how much is at stake: four seats, potentially reshuffled, with control of the map hanging on the Court's next move.
Thomas's pattern of bold action on redistricting cases is well established. Earlier this year, he issued a forceful rebuke when the Court declined to take up a related constitutional challenge, arguing the majority was ducking hard questions about judicial overreach in election law.
For Democrats and the ACLU, the Monday deadline is a problem. They must now convince Thomas, or the full Court, that a map drawn by an unelected special master should override the product of Alabama's duly elected legislature, even after the Supreme Court narrowed the very legal theory that justified the court-drawn map in the first place.
The political math is simple. Under the special-master map, Democrats hold a seat they would almost certainly lose under the legislature's plan. Rep. Figures's district exists because a federal court redrew it. If the 2023 map is restored, the seat reverts to a configuration far more favorable to Republicans.
Fox News Digital reached out to both Attorney General Marshall and the ACLU for comment but did not receive a response from either party before publication.
The broader redistricting fight extends well beyond Alabama. The Callais decision reshaped the legal landscape across the South, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's lone dissent in the Louisiana case laid bare the left's frustration with a Court majority unwilling to preserve expansive Voting Rights Act interpretations.
The immediate question is whether the voting rights plaintiffs can meet Monday's deadline with arguments strong enough to keep the special-master map alive. If they fail to persuade Thomas, or if the full Court steps in, Alabama could revert to its legislature-drawn lines in time for the August 11 special primaries.
That outcome would likely cost Democrats a House seat and validate the position that state legislatures, not federal courts, hold the pen on redistricting. It would also mark another step in Thomas's long-running effort to rein in what he views as judicial overreach across multiple areas of law.
Several open questions remain. The lower court has not publicly explained why it re-blocked the legislature's map after the Supreme Court's May 11 remand. The timeline for a final Supreme Court resolution is unclear. And the broader constitutional question, whether Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act can be used to compel race-based redistricting at all, remains unresolved, though Callais moved the needle sharply in one direction.
When judges draw the maps and voters get the candidates those judges prefer, it is not redistricting. It is something else, and Alabama's legislature has every right to push back.
