Judges to Weigh Request to Put Alabama Under Preclearance for a Future Congressional Map
Source: US News and World Report/AP
July 10, 2025, at 3:56 p.m.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Federal judges will weigh a request to bring Alabama back under the preclearance requirement of the Voting Rights Act after ruling the state intentionally diluted the voting strength of Black residents when drawing congressional lines.
Black voters and civil rights organizations, who successfully challenged Alabama’s congressional map, are asking a three-judge panel to require any new congressional maps drawn by state lawmakers to go through federal review before being implemented. The Alabama attorney general and the U.S. Department of Justice oppose the request.
Judges on Thursday set a July 29 hearing on the request. The three-judge panel in 2023 ordered the use of a new congressional map in Alabama. The judges selected the new map after saying they were “deeply troubled” that state lawmakers had ignored their directive to draw a second majority-Black district or something close to it.
Plaintiffs said Alabama’s actions and the defiance of the court order mirror the state's actions in the 1960s. “Alabama sought to ignore, evade, and strategically frustrate attempts to remedy racial discrimination,” lawyers for the plaintiffs wrote in a court filing. The request would require new congressional maps drawn through the 2030 Census cycle to undergo federal review by the court before being used.
Read more: https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2025-07-10/judges-to-weigh-request-to-put-alabama-under-preclearance-for-a-future-congressional-map
Secions 4 & 5 of the VRA, that included "pre-clearance" and a list of states/counties/cities that were required to go through that before making any changes to their voting rules/maps, were essentially struck down by the SCOTUS with the majority opinion done by who else but Roberts (Shelby County v Holder, which of course had to do with AL).
Selective originalism and selective textualism: How the Roberts court decimated the Voting Rights Act