Two Montgomery area State Senate districts weren’t included in an August special election announcement by Gov. Kay Ivey on Tuesday for a handful of congressional seats.
The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) struck down a 2023 federal court-ordered Alabama congressional map on Monday. Alabama will now use a likely 6-1 Republican map passed in a special session in 2023.
However, the ruling didn’t address two State Senate districts caught up in similar litigation.
Manasco ordered Alabama lawmakers to redraw a new State Senate redistricting map for the 2026 election. Despite the court order, Ivey opted not to call a special session of the legislature to consider a new map. Manasco's order concurred with the left-wing plaintiffs suing the state, who claimed that State Senate Districts 25 and 26 held by State Sens. Will Barfoot (R-Pike Road) and Kirk Hatcher (D-Montgomery) violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
After Ivey's decision against a special session, Manasco ordered a special master to redraw Alabama's State Senate map for the 2026 election. Manasco selected the map dubbed "Remedial Plan 3," a map submitted by an 18-year-old University of Alabama undergraduate student.
Due to the new court-ordered map, Barfoot is running for the District 26 Senate seat rather than the District 25 seat that he currently holds. Barfoot has said his decision was forced by a federal court order that racially gerrymandered legislative districts to unfairly tilt the scales and ensure the election of liberal Democrat legislators. Hatcher announced in January his candidacy for State Senate District 25, rather than his current district, District 26.
According to an analysis by the court-ordered special master, the new State Senate map makes State Senate District 25, a blue district in which 15 of 17 past races were won by Democrats. However, District 26, held by Hatcher, is now a district where the Democratic candidate has won only 9 of 17 past races.
A motion to dissolve the federal court’s injunction against using the State Senate map passed by the Legislature in 2021 was filed by Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall on Tuesday.
“The Secretary of State respectfully requests an order pursuant to Rules 60(b)(5) and/or 62(d) vacating the injunctions this Court entered prohibiting the Secretary from conducting elections pursuant to the State’s 2021 Plan for its Senate districts and requiring the Secretary to use a court-ordered map that created an additional “Black-opportunity” Senate district,” Marshall said in a filing on Tuesday. “When the Court entered its injunctions, it did not have the benefit of the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which significantly “update[d] the Gingles framework” to “realign it with the text of §2 and constitutional principles.”
If the motion is granted, special elections for the State Senate districts would also be called.
“Governor Ivey will be ready to quickly act on that front as well, pending favorable court action,” Gina Maiola, a spokesperson for Ivey, told 1819 News on Tuesday.
Ivey set the special primary election for certain congressional races on 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.
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