U.S. House of Representatives

Alabama plans to appeal a federal judge's order to swiftly draw new state Senate districts for next year's legislative elections. The Associated Press says this development was revealed in court filings.

Federal judges ordered Alabama to continue using a court-selected congressional map for the rest of the decade, but they declined to put the state back under the pre-clearance requirement of the Voting Rights Act. The decision is to keep the U.S. House district 2 map in place until 2030. What happens after that appears unclear. The APR news team spent eight months investigating issues surrounding the new U.S. House seat along the state’s “black belt.” Congressman Shomari Figures was interviewed about the new district on “APR Notebook.”

Facing a sea of state troopers, Charles Mauldin was near the front line of voting rights marchers who strode across the now infamous Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965. The violence that awaited them shocked the nation and galvanized support for the passage of the U.S. Voting Rights Act a few months later. The APR news team covered this year’s sixtieth anniversary of “bloody Sunday.”

A spat over congressional redistricting in Texas marks the latest episode in a long national history of gerrymandering. Democratic lawmakers have fled Texas to try to block Republicans from redrawing congressional districts in their favor. The term "gerrymander" originated over 200 years ago to describe political manipulation in legislative districts. A fight before the U.S. Supreme Court that created Alabama’s new U.S. House in District 2 shows how new maps can be challenged. The legal case was featured in Alabama Public Radio’s new interview program “APR Notebook.”

Senate Democrats reintroduced a bill Tuesday to restore and expand protections enshrined in the Voting Rights act of 1965, their latest long-shot attempt to revive the landmark law just days before its 60th anniversary and at a time of renewed debate over the future administration of American elections. The bill is named for the late John Lewis, who was injured during the 1965 attack on voting rights marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.

The Alabama Public Radio news team is known for its major journalism investigations. We've been doing them for over a decade. Our most recent national award winning effort was an eight month investigation into Alabama's new U.S. House seat in the rural Black Belt region of the state. The new voting map was ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court so Alabama would be more fair to black residents. Now, anybody who follows the news might reasonably be thinking— what? The same high court that overturned Roe versus Wade and ended affirmative action in the nation's universities told Alabama that they needed to treat black voters better. Even the plaintiffs in the legal case of Allen versus Milligan told APR news they were gobsmacked they won. The goal after that legal victory was to make sure the new minority congressional district works. The point there was to keep conservative opponents from having the excuse to try to flip the voting map back to the GOP. And that's a moving target that could change at any moment, even as we speak, the job of managing all of these issues now falls to Congressman Shomari Figures. He was elected last November as the first US House member in Alabama's redrawn District two. Shomari figures joins me next on APR Notebook.

I talked with Alabama's newest member of Congress about the possible future impact on the state from Donald Trump's so called Big, beautiful Bill. Democratic U.S. House member Shomari Figures is the first person elected to Alabama's newly redrawn district two the US Supreme Court ordered the new voting map to better represent African Americans.

The Alabama Public Radio news team is known for its major journalism investigations. We've been doing them for over a decade. Our most recent national award winning effort was an eight month investigation into Alabama's new U.S. House seat in the rural Black Belt region of the state. The new voting map was ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court so Alabama would be more fair to black residents. Now, anybody who follows the news might reasonably be thinking— okay? The same high court that overturned Roe versus Wade and ended affirmative action in the nation's universities told Alabama that they needed to treat black voters better. Even the plaintiffs in the legal case of Allen versus Milligan told APR news they were gobsmacked they won. The goal after that legal victory was to make sure the new minority congressional district works. The point there was to keep conservative opponents from having the excuse to try to flip the voting map back to the GOP. And that's a moving target that could change at any moment, even as we speak. The job of managing all of these issues now falls to Congressman Shomari Figures.

Senate Republicans hauled President Donald Trump's big tax breaks and spending cuts bill to passage on the narrowest of votes, pushing past opposition from Democrats and their own GOP ranks after a turbulent overnight session. Vice President JD Vance broke a 50-50 tie to push it over the top. The outcome capped an unusually tense weekend of work at the Capitol, the president's signature legislative priority teetering on the edge of approval, or collapse.

Work continues in the U.S. Senate on what Donald Trump calls his big beautiful budget bill. Critics are concerned about possible cuts to Medicaid and the SNAP nutrition program. Alabama Medicaid says about a quarter of state residents gets health coverage this way. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says three quarters of a million Alabamians use SNAP