Doug Jones Statement on the Supreme Court Gutting Alabama's Black Voting Districts
BIRMINGHAM, AL — Democratic gubernatorial nominee Doug Jones released the following statement after the U.S. Supreme Court granted Alabama's emergency application to lift the injunction requiring the state to use its current congressional map in the 2026 elections:
"Today, the rule of law was lost, and Alabamians will pay the price.
The same Supreme Court that ruled just a couple of years ago in Allen v. Milligan that congressional maps drawn by the Alabama legislature violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting Black voting power, paving the way for districts that better reflected Alabama’s population and making it possible for Shomari Figures and Terri Sewell to serve as Alabama's Black representatives in Congress has now reversed course and has now allowed Alabama to use their old districts which the 3 judge panel held were drawn to “intentionally” discriminate based on race. The Republicans in Montgomery used Louisiana v. Callais as cover to rig the system and to dismantle protections that Black Alabamians fought and died for. Their goal was never compliance with the law. It was to change the rules when the outcome didn't suit them. History has seen this before in Alabama, and history will look down on this moment just the same. It is a sad day when both the State of Alabama and the Supreme Court of the United States together decided that they will no longer be on the right side of history.
Black Alabamians deserve equal representation in Congress. What happened here is not justice. In the same state where civil rights heroes were beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge for the right to vote, the same forces that have always stood in the way are once again silencing Black voters and diluting their voting power."
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