Alabama State Conference of the NAACP v. Allen

On November 16, 2021, the ACLU, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Southern Poverty Law Center, and co-counsel filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of several Black individual plaintiffs, the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, and Greater Birmingham Ministries, challenging Alabama’s newly drawn state legislative maps as racial gerrymanders. The complaint alleged that the maps for the State Senate and House pack and crack Black communities in the state as a result of a race-predominant redistricting process. Plaintiffs amended their complaint in February 2022 to add a claim under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, arguing that the map denies Black residents in the Montgomery region an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and elect candidates of choice. Defendants moved to dismiss the action on March 11, 2022; however, the three-judge panel stayed the action on March 21 pending the outcome of the Supreme Court’s review of the preliminary injunction enjoining Alabama’s congressional map in Allen v. Milligan.

In summer 2023, after the Milligan plaintiffs prevailed before the Supreme Court, the district court lifted the stay.

Defendants moved to dismiss the remaining Voting Right Act claims related the State Senate map on multiple grounds, but the Court denied their motions (except for dismissing one defendant based on legislative immunity) and scheduled the case to proceed to trial in November 2024. The Defendants sought partial summary judgment against Plaintiffs’ Huntsville-area VRA claim in June 2024, but the Court denied this motion as well. The parties tried the case before Judge Manasco in Birmingham over eight days in November 2024, in a trial featuring ten expert witnesses and 13 fact witnesses between the parties. The parties completed post-trial briefing in December 2024 and a decision from the court is pending.