By Joseph Ax
May 26 (Reuters) - A panel of three U.S. judges blocked Alabama on Tuesday from using an electoral map that would eliminate one of the state's two majority-Black U.S. House of Representatives districts, a setback for Republican efforts to retain control of the chamber in November's midterm elections.
In a 79-page ruling, the judges said the Republican-backed map intentionally discriminated against Black voters and could not be used for the 2026 elections. Republican officials in Alabama
are expected to appeal the decision to the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court.
Black voters typically support Democratic candidates. President Donald Trump's Republicans are defending a narrow House majority in the midterms.
Republican Alabama Governor Kay Ivey previously postponed to August the party primary elections for four U.S. House districts that were redrawn as part of the disputed map.
The ruling was the latest development in a new and frenzied round of congressional redistricting that has unfolded across the South, as Republican-led states have scrambled to take advantage of an April Supreme Court decision that severely weakened the Voting Rights Act, a 1965 law intended to prevent discrimination in voting.
Tennessee and Louisiana have each dismantled a majority-Black U.S. House seat, while South Carolina's Senate is poised on Tuesday to approve a plan that would take apart the district of U.S. Representative Jim Clyburn, a Black Democrat who has held the seat since 1993.
In Alabama, Republican state legislators are trying to return to a map they approved in 2023 that the same three-judge panel previously had deemed discriminatory.
Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court granted the state's request to lift the lower court's prior ruling blocking Alabama from using the map, which erases one of the state's two majority-Black districts. The state has seven U.S. House seats in total. Black people make up about a quarter of Alabama's population.
The Supreme Court ordered the three-judge panel to reconsider its findings in light of the Voting Rights Act decision, which raised the bar for challenging congressional maps on the basis of race.
But the panel said it had reached the same conclusion: that the map purposefully and unlawfully targeted Black voters.
"Ultimately, we cannot see our way clear to requiring Alabamians to cast their votes in the 2026 elections under a districting plan tainted by intentional race-based discrimination," wrote the panel, which includes two judges appointed by Trump and one appointed by Democratic former President Bill Clinton.
The decision, for now, means that the August special primaries will go forward under the remedial map that the court installed in 2023, which includes two majority-Black districts, both currently held by Democrats.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
