The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that Alabama can move forward with congressional redistricting, allowing the state to eliminate one of its two Black-majority districts ahead of this year’s midterm election.

The Supreme Court ruling overturned an injunction that required the state to use a court-drawn congressional district map until 2030. This map, which had been in place since 2023, created a second majority-Black and traditionally Democratic congressional district as a way to better account for the state’s racial makeup and protect Black voting power. 

In their ruling, the court did call for lower courts to reconsider Alabama’s congressional map in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which the court ruled on at the end of April. In that case, the court struck down Black voter protection measures enshrined in the Voting Rights Act by ruling that a majority-Black voting district in Louisiana counted as unconstitutional gerrymander. However, it is unlikely that a lower court will be able to rule ahead of Alabama’s May 19 primary election. 

Now, Alabama lawmakers are implementing the district map that the courts struck down in 2023, which eliminates the second majority-Black district, District 2, the court-ordered map created by redrawing the boundaries of Districts 1 and 2. The map also redraws the boundaries of Alabama’s only other majority-Black and Democrat-leaning district, District 7. 

Alabama’s redistricting moves come just days ahead of the May 19 primary election, sparking confusion about the congressional races on these ballots. Ahead of last week’s Supreme Court ruling, Alabama lawmakers had passed a bill during a special legislative session which authorized special primary elections for districts affected by redistricting efforts — nullifying the results of the May 19 primary. This would include Districts 1, 2, 6 and 7. 

Gov. Kay Ivey has announced that these special elections will take place on Aug. 11. Only the congressional races will be included in this special election. All other primary races, including races for governor and other statewide offices, will be determined by Tuesday’s election, even in redrawn districts. 

Redistricting has sparked protests across the state. Thousands gathered in Montgomery and Selma — two cities central to the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s — this weekend to protest these efforts in what was called the “National Day for Voting Rights Action.” The protest retraced the path of the Civil Rights-era Selma-to-Montgomery marches, beginning at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Selma, crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge and ending with a rally in front of the Alabama State Capitol.

Lawmakers from across the country attended this weekend’s protests. This included both Alabama’s Black congressional representatives: Reps. Terri Sewell and Shomari Figures. New York Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Tim Kennedy, New Jersey’s Sen. Corey Booker and Illinois’s Rep. Sean Casten were also in attendance, as well as Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed.

Several religious and civil rights leaders also spoke to the crowd at the Montgomery rally. This included Rev. Bernice King, the daughter of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rev. Jamal Bryant, the pastor at Atlanta’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church.

“Today is the death of the Confederacy,” Bryant told protestors, calling for younger attendees to pick up the mantle of campaigning for civil rights, adding, “I am tired of us just letting older people die with the torch in their hands. It’s time for a new generation to take over.”

Alabama top stories in brief

Alabama AG announces probes into Southern Poverty Law Center

• Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall announced a civil probe into the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center in light of a federal indictment against the nonprofit.
• Marshall said his office is trying to determine if the organization violated state laws regarding charities or deceptive trade practices. So far, his office has issued a subpoena to the organization, seeking information about its payments to informants.
• The SPLC has said that it is currently reviewing the subpoena. 
• The federal government issued an indictment against the SPLC in April, accusing the nonprofit of fraud for using funds to pay informants involved with extremist hate groups without informing its donors of these efforts.
• The SPLC has called the fraud claims “provably wrong.”

Birmingham facing two lawsuits regarding Nebius data center project

• The city of Birmingham is now facing two different lawsuits linked to the proposed Nebius data center project, as two plaintiffs filed suit against the city last week.
• In the first suit, two homeowners in the city’s Oxmoor Valley neighborhood — where the data center is slated to be built — are suing the city and Nebius to stop construction of the multi-billion-dollar data center.
• This suit claims that the plans for the project require more scrutiny from the city and that the city’s six-month data center moratorium, which went into place just after Nebius submitted its plans for the project, could have also applied to the project. 
• One day after this suit was announced, Nebius announced its own lawsuit against the city’s zoning board over the board’s recent denials of the company’s power infrastructure plans for the center.
• In that suit, Nebius is asking for a bench trial to determine the zoning decisions after the board walked back a decision it made in March to provide a special exception request for power infrastructure to Nebius and Alabama Power to build a power substation for the plant. 

Alabama woman claims she was forced to give birth on jail cell floor, files lawsuit

• An Alabama woman is suing Houston County officials, including the sheriff and several jail officers, claiming that she was subjected to cruel and unusual punishment by being forced to give birth in a county jail cell two years ago.
• The woman, Tiffany McElroy, was eight months pregnant and was being held in the Houston County Jail in 2024, after pleading guilty to a chemical endangerment charge.  
• Her suit claims that, when she went into labor, jail officers refused to transport her to the hospital. Instead, all she was offered was a diaper and a Tylenol throughout a labor that lasted more than 24 hours. 
• The suit says other detainees helped McElroy deliver her baby, but that they were punished by officers who “threatened the women with criminal charges if anything was wrong with the baby.” 
• “I have nightmares that we both died — and it’s like a part of me did die that day,” McElroy said in a press release about the lawsuit. “I’m scared to even get pregnant again. They shouldn’t be allowed to do that to another woman ever again.”
• McElroy is being represented by the advocacy group Pregnancy Justice, as well as the Southern Poverty Law Center.  

12-foot gator removed, euthanized from Gulf Shores’ Intercoastal Waterway

• A 12-foot, 640-pound alligator was removed from the Intercoastal Waterway in Gulf Shores last week by the city’s police department and state wildlife officials. 
• The alligator, which was found along West Canal Drive by Portage Creek, was removed from the populated area and then euthanized.
• The alligator had been spotted several times by homeowners in the area, and had killed and eaten a dog that had jumped into the waterway earlier in May. 
• A necropsy performed on the alligator confirmed that it was being fed by humans, drawing it into more populated areas of the city. The Department of Conservation and Natural Resources warns against feeding alligators. 

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