Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall on Thursday filed a reply brief in the Eleventh Circuit urging the court to throw out injunctions blocking Alabama from using its legislatively drawn 2021 State Senate map.
If successful, Marshall will free State Sen. Will Barfoot’s (R-Pike Road) Montgomery-area district from a federal special master’s redraw.
The brief argues last month’s 6-3 Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais brought a “sea change” to redistricting law and that the lower court’s orders cannot survive a single test the high court laid down. No court has found Alabama’s map fails the new standards.
“Alabama’s elections should be decided by maps drawn by the people’s representatives, not by a federal court order built on legal standards the Supreme Court just confirmed don’t apply,” Marshall said.
We are asking the court to act before Alabama voters are forced to cast ballots under a map the law cannot support.”
As Yellowhammer News has extensively reported, a federal judge’s order last fall granted plaintiffs, including the NAACP, a race-based redraw of Barfoot’s solidly Republican District 25, which President Trump carried 64-36 in 2024, into an also-redrawn District 26, currently held by State Sen. Kirk Hatcher (D-Montgomery), which Kamala Harris would have won by double digits.
Barfoot has announced he will run in District 26 to keep conservative Elmore County in Republican hands.
Citing Justice Kavanaugh, Marshall’s brief turned the plaintiff’s’ Purcell argument inside out: “[i]t is one thing for a State on its own to toy with its election laws close to a State’s elections. But it is quite another thing for a federal court to swoop in and re-do a State’s election laws in the period close to an election.”
The same NAACP attorneys lost the identical Purcell argument in Callais days ago. Their proposed map also fails the new test, splitting Prattville, ignoring community ties, and refusing to protect incumbents.
Marshall has asked the court to rule by today, eleven days before the May 19 primary.
Lawmakers gavel in Friday for the final day of the special redistricting session, sending SB1 and HB1, advanced from committee Tuesday and their respective chambers Wednesday, to Governor Ivey.
Grayson Everett is the editor in chief of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on X @Grayson270.
