SCOTUS

Thousands of Louisiana voters have already cast early ballots for congressional candidates in what soon could be the wrong districts. Alabama's primaries are a week away, but the state plans a do-over for voting on U.S. House races following Monday’s SCOTUS action to allow the State to use a voting map that eliminates District 2, currently occupied by African American Democrat Shomari Figures. A new congressional map in Tennessee upended races that had been underway for months.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday set the stage for Alabama to get rid of one of two largely Black congressional districts before this year’s midterm elections, creating an opening for Republicans to gain an additional U.S. House seat in a partisan battle for control of the closely divided chamber.

Alabama’s special session on erasing African American representation in Congress is over. All side are now waiting to see what the U.S. Supreme Court does. Alabama’s Attorney General is appealing to the justices to overturn an injunction that’s keeping the state from rewriting the U.S. House seat in District two.

The Alabama Senate is poised to vote on its own plan to erase at least one Democratic U.S. House seat held by an African American lawmaker. The Alabama Public Radio news team produced a national award-winning investigation into the creation of District 2, at the order of the U.S. Supreme Court. That includes Lynn Oldshue's 2024 story on a 1960 SCOTUS case that laid the foundation for black voting rights.

The Alabama NAACP and the state’s League of Women Voters held a rally and issued statements against this week’s special session to possibly erase two Congressional seats, held by African American Democrats. This move follows last week’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a Louisiana case, where the Justices ruled that race should no longer be a factor in drawing voting maps. The NAACP held a protest in Montgomery called "Pull Up The People's House."The League of Women Voters is strongly opposing the Alabama special session, which was called nineteen days before voters head to the polls for this year’s primary elections. The Alabama Public Radio news team produced a national award winning series and documentary on the creation of the new District 2 seat.

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey reversed her original decision to not call a special session over the state’s Congressional map. The National Association of Black Journalists, the Public Media Journalists’ Association, and the Society of Professional Journalists honored the Alabama Public Radio newsroom for its eight month investigation into the state’s newest Congressional seat, which now may be at risk. Click below to listen to APR’s special report from 2024, “…a U.S. House seat, if you can keep it.”

One of Alabama’s longest-serving death row inmates could soon receive a new trial after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the state’s appeal of a lower court's ruling that prosecutors violated his rights by intentionally rejecting potential Black jurors.

The Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump's tariff policy. This was considered a significant loss on an issue crucial to his economic agenda. However, published reports indicate that tariffs impacting Alabama, including actions against steel and automobile imports, remain in effect.

Governor Kay Ivey signed The Child Predator Death Penalty Act into law. The measure strengthens Alabama’s criminal penalties against those who are convicted of felony sexual crimes against a child. Crimes of first-degree rape, first-degree sodomy, and first-degree sexual assault of victims under the age of 12 would automatically become punishable by death.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared ready to gut a key tool of the Voting Rights Act that has helped root out racial discrimination in voting for more than a half century, a change that would boost Republican electoral prospects, particularly across the South. Just two years ago, A earlier ruling created Alabama's new minority majority U.S. House seat in District 2, now occupied by Democrat Shomari Figures.