The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way Tuesday for Alabama to use a kind of new congressional map in the 2026 midterm elections that federal judges rejected for being racially discriminatory.

In an unsigned, four-page order issued June 2, the highest court of the nation ruled "the District Court's analysis departed from" the Supreme Court's decision in Louisiana v. Callais from April 29, which severely limited Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting. The Supreme Court's decision in Callais established additional requirements for vote dilution claims to succeed.

Tuesday's decision was made along ideological lines, with the Supreme Court's three liberal justices dissenting from the six-justice conservative supermajority.

The ruling will likely serve as the final chapter in a long battle between the state and the courts over Alabama's congressional maps, which began in 2021 when Alabama enacted a new map following the 2020 census. Black voters and civil rights organizations challenged the map in federal court, arguing it violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because it divided Black voters in the southern part of the state between three different congressional districts, leaving them a minority in each.

Lower courts sided with plaintiffs, ruling the state must redraw its maps to include two majority-Black districts to better represent the statewide population. In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the state in Allen v Milligan, maintaining an injunction that required the state to create an additional majority-Black district.

Following this, the redrawn map was challenged for failing to meet the two majority-Black district requirement, with the map still including just one majority-Black district. The dispute again reached the Supreme Court, which upheld its initial decision.

As a result, the current congressional map was used in 2024. Jerry Carl ran against Barry Moore in the Republican primary for District 1, a race in which Moore won, going on to win the seat in a landslide during the 2024 election. Shomari Figures, D-Mobile, was elected to District 2, becoming Alabama's second Democratic representative in the U.S. House.

Following the Callais decision this spring, Alabama asked the Supreme Court to reinstate the state's legislatively enacted plan, arguing the ruling meant that they were only permissible to use a map with only one majority-Black district. On May 11, the Supreme Court allowed Alabama to use the old map for the upcoming midterm elections in an unsigned order after a back-and-forth that saw a three-judge panel in federal court rule the state should stick with the current map that has two Black-majority districts.

“Tonight the United States Supreme Court ruled in my favor but, more importantly, ruled in favor of the State of Alabama. By returning our elections to the congressional maps approved by the Legislature instead of the maps drawn by unelected bureaucrats, this unprecedented wrong has been made right,” Secretary of State Wes Allen said in a statement following the decision.

As a result of the decision, Alabama will likely have six Republican members of Congress next year and one Democrat as Republicans hope to gain Mobile's District 2 back.

"The Supreme Court has now confirmed that there is no longer a Voting Rights Act in America, and states are essentially free to discriminate against minority voters with no consequences," Figures said in a statement. "This is a dangerous ruling that sets the state and this nation back decades."

The redrawn map does not affect Baldwin County’s representation, as it resided entirely within District 1 in both maps, but Mobile is impacted by switching from District 2 to 1.

The elections for Districts 1, 2, 6 and 7 were on the May 19 primary ballots, but it had been promoted that if the state won its argument and was allowed to redistrict the U.S. House of Representatives, those elections would be moot for a new special primary to take place.

Republican candidates who qualified for the special primary in August include Jerry Carl, Rhett Marques, Joshua McKee, John Mills and Austin Sidwell for District 1; Hampton Harris, Christian Horn, David Matthews and James Richardson for District 2; Case Dixon and Gary Palmer for District 6; and David W. Perry for District 7.

Democratic candidates include Clyde Jones for District 1, Figures for District 2, Jacob Bouma-Sims, Ashtyn Kennedy, Maurice Mercer and Keith Pilkington for District 6 and Terri Sewell for District 7.

The congressional special primary election involving the state-backed district map will be held Aug 11, while the general election will occur as scheduled on Nov 3. There will be no runoff for the special primary.