Alabama governor calls special session to move primaries for redistricting, while Georgia passes

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey called legislators into a special session Friday and asked them to reschedule the state's midterm primaries, in hopes that pushing those elections back will give them time to re-install congressional maps that had been blocked in court before a landmark Supreme Court ruling changed the landscape around race and redistricting this week. Alabama was scheduled to host its election on May 19, using a court-ordered map that includes two congressional districts in which Black voters have a good chance of electing the representative of their choice, following redistricting litigation earlier this decade. But after a Wednesday ruling from the Supreme Court that signals that Alabama might be allowed to use a previous map with just one Black-majority district, Ivey said Friday she wanted state lawmakers to reschedule the election. “By calling the Legislature into a special session, I am ensuring Alabama is prepared should the courts act quickly enough to allow Alabama’s previously drawn congressional and state Senate maps to be used during this election cycle," Ivey said in a statement Friday afternoon. Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Louisiana's congressional map unconstitutional in an opinion effectively gutting the racial gerrymandering protections in Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The ruling is expected to trigger an avalanche of new maps next year, extending the mid-decade redistricting that's swept the nation in the last year. Following the Supreme Court's ruling on Wednesday, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall filed an emergency motion seeking quick answer from the nation's top court on Alabama's redistricting. Elsewhere, Republicans have urged other Southern governors to delay primaries and redraw their maps, too. Louisiana acted first, with GOP Gov. Jeff Landry ordering his state’s ongoing primary to stop for a map redraw. Voting rights groups sued on Friday to have the previously scheduled primary go ahead. And South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, suggested Friday afternoon that his state might be next. “The U.S. Supreme Court upheld South Carolina’s current congressional map in 2024. In light of the Court’s most recent decision on the Voting Rights Act, it would be appropriate for the General Assembly to ensure that South Carolina’s congressional map still complies with all requirements of federal law and the U.S. Constitution,” he said in a statement. The South Carolina legislature is currently in session and the state's primary is scheduled for June 9. But Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, another Republican, said Friday that he doesn’t plan to delay Georgia’s primary this month to redraw his state’s political maps for this year’s elections. “Voting is already underway for the 2026 elections,” Kemp told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ahead of the state’s May 19 primaries. He said the Callais Supreme Court decision “requires Georgia to adopt new electoral maps before the 2028 election cycle,” however. Kemp praised the ruling, saying it “restores fairness to our redistricting process and allows states to pass electoral maps that reflect the will of the voters, not the will of federal judges.”