Yesterday, the three-judge district court in the Alabama congressional redistricting litigation declined to bail-in the State to the VRA’s preclearance regime. You can find the district court’s decision here .

Recall that the district court had previously found that Alabama’s 2023 defiance of the Supreme Court’s decision in Allen v. Milligan constituted intentional discrimination. Based on the district court’s obvious frustration with Alabama’s recalcitrance, it appeared that the State was a prime candidate for bail-in under Section 3(c) of the VRA. Moreover, plaintiffs’ bail-in request was limited: only for congressional redistricting and only through the post-2030 redistricting map. Bail-in was designed to stop the game of whack-a-mole that was Southern defiance of federal c

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