A three-judge panel of federal judges will consider on Friday a motion by left-wing activist groups to block the use of a congressional map passed by Republican lawmakers in 2023.
United States Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus, District Judge Anna Manasco and District Judge Terry Moorer called a hearing for 9 a.m. Friday in Birmingham to discuss a preliminary injunction motion filed by the NAACP and ACLU.
The three-judge panel has already repeatedly blocked Alabama from using the congressional map passed by the legislature in 2023.
A special master hired by a three-judge panel in Birmingham redrew the map for the 2024 congressional elections after Democrats and liberal groups were successful in their initial legal challenge.
Marcus, Manasco and Moorer initially ruled the 2023 plan violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Governor Kay Ivey recently signed into law a bill that would allow the state to use previously passed congressional district and State Senate maps if a federal court or the U.S. Supreme Court lifts an injunction on Alabama. The bill signing came after Ivey called a special session after a 6-3 ruling in Louisiana v. Callias, in which the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) held that race-based redistricting is unconstitutional.
Shortly after the bill was signed into law, SCOTUS struck down the 2023 federal court-ordered Alabama congressional map. Barring further judicial intervention, Alabama will now use a likely 6-1 Republican-drawn map passed during a 2023 special session for the 2026 election.
Ivey announced on Tuesday that the state would hold a special election in August for a handful of congressional seats affected by the map change under the 6-1 map. Ivey set the special primary election for August 11. There will be no runoff election. The general election will occur as planned with all other races on November 3. The May 19 primary will still occur. However, any results cast for the races in the 1st, 2nd, 6th, and 7th congressional districts will be nullified after the August election.
The court-ordered map used for the 2024 election resulted in Democrats sending two members to Congress in the last election.
Left-wing groups want the court-ordered map to be used again for the 2026 election.
"That Alabama officials now want to return to the unconstitutional 2023 Plan does not change the status quo. Rather, Defendants' chaotic decision to schedule a new primary, set a new candidate filing deadlines for next week, and require officials statewide to put the 2023 Plan to use in three months calls out for maintaining the actual status quo. Unlike the Remedial Map, no one has ever voted under the 2023 Plan, no candidates have ever run for office under it, and no election officials have ever had to implement it," Deuel Ross and Davin Rosborough, attorneys for the ACLU and NAACP, said in a filing on Friday.
Ross and Rosborough asked the court to "grant Plaintiffs' motion enjoining the use of the unconstitutional 2023 Plan, re-instituting the status quo Court-ordered Plan, and requiring the Secretary to certify and canvass the results from the May 19 primary."
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