Shomari Figures

A three-judge appellate panel may soon decide the fate of four U.S. House Districts in Alabama’s mid-term election. All sides gathered in Birmingham, with the Secretary of State arguing that a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for legislators in special session to erase the new District 2, currently held by Democrat Shomari Figures. Critics of the state’s actions say Alabama is redrawing voting lines illegally based on race.

Organizers of Saturday’s voting rights protests in Montgomery and Selma say that was just the beginning. Demonstrators started at the Edmund Pettus Bridge where marchers were attacked in 1965. The day ended at Alabama’s Capitol City to oppose the redrawing of voting maps.

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.

Alabama has asked federal judges to lift a court order requiring the state to have a second district where Black voters are the majority or close to it. Lawmakers are looking to take part in a national redistricting battle. and could vote today plan to alter state's congressional primaries if the courts allow Republican state officials to switch to more advantageous U.S. House maps ahead of the November midterm elections.

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.

Republican lawmakers in Tennessee are poised to take up a plan to carve up a majority-Black congressional district, reshaping it to the GOP's advantage as part of President Donald Trump's strategy to try to hold on to a slim House majority in the November midterm elections. The Alabama House passed legislation authorizing special congressional primaries as Republicans eye the possibility of getting a different congressional map in place for the November elections

The Alabama House may debate legislation that would allow the state to hold a special congressional primary, if the Supreme Court clears the way for the state to change its U.S. House districts. The current primary vote is currently set for later this month. Actions in the Alabama House and Senate are drawing an unusual rebuke from the, otherwise non-partisan, State League of Women Voters.

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.