The Short Answer: Seven Districts, Two New Maps
To answer the headline directly: Alabama has seven seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. And yes, the map dictating those districts has been in a state of flux. A court-ordered map was used for the 2024 elections after the previous one was found to likely violate the Voting Rights Act. However, in a major turn of events in mid-2026, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Alabama to use a different, legislatively-drawn map for the November 2026 elections. This decision blocked a lower court ruling that had found the new map was intentionally discriminatory against Black voters.
The Legal Fight: Allen v. Milligan
The controversy began after the 2020 Census. Alabama's Republican-led legislature drew a congressional map that, like previous versions, contained only one district where
Black voters, who make up over a quarter of the state's population, had a realistic opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice. Civil rights groups and a group of voters sued in a case known as Allen v. Milligan, arguing the map illegally diluted the power of Black voters in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In a landmark 2023 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court surprisingly sided with the challengers, affirming a lower court's order to create a second opportunity district.
Defiance and a Special Master
Despite the Supreme Court's clear directive, the Alabama legislature convened in July 2023 and passed a new map that still failed to create a second majority-Black or near-majority-Black district. The move was seen by many as an act of defiance. In response, a three-judge federal panel blocked the legislature's map, expressing frustration with the state's refusal to comply with court orders. The court then took the unusual step of appointing a "special master"—an independent expert—to draw a fair map. The resulting map, which created a second district with a substantial Black voting-age population (at 48.7%), was used in the 2024 elections and resulted in the election of a second Black Democrat from Alabama to Congress.
The 2026 Reversal
The story took another dramatic turn in 2026. Following a new Supreme Court ruling in a Louisiana case (Louisiana v. Callais) that made it harder to challenge maps on the basis of racial gerrymandering, Alabama Republicans saw an opening. The state sought to discard the court-ordered map used in 2024 and implement the one the legislature had passed in 2023—the very map that federal judges had called intentionally discriminatory. After a rapid series of legal maneuvers, the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2026 granted Alabama's request to use its preferred map for the fall elections. This map reconfigured the districts, effectively dismantling the second Black opportunity district that had been created by the special master.
What This Means for Alabama Voters
The immediate impact of the Supreme Court's 2026 decision was chaos and confusion. Primary elections for four congressional districts had to be postponed until August to accommodate the last-minute map change. The reversion to the legislature's 2023 map significantly increases Republican chances of regaining the House seat they lost in 2024. For voters, it means the state's congressional delegation is more likely to return to a 6-1 Republican majority, despite Black residents comprising over 26% of the population. The ongoing legal saga underscores the fierce battles over representation and the enduring, and evolving, legacy of the Voting Rights Act in shaping American democracy.
