Lawyers for Alabama and for the organizations and Black voters who sued the state over its congressional map filed new documents Saturday with the three-judge federal court that will decide the case.

The judges heard oral arguments Monday and instructed both sides to file proposed findings of fact and conclusions by 8 a.m. Saturday.

At stake is whether Alabama will use the congressional district map passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature or a map drawn by a special master and cartographer already appointed by the court.

The Legislature’s map is a replacement for one that the U.S. Supreme Court found most likely violated the Voting Rights Act.

The documents filed Saturday morning reinforced many of the points argued Monday. They may be the last word before the court rules because Secretary of State Wes Allen has told the court the new map needs to be ready by October.

The state says the Legislature’s new map follows traditional redistricting principals like compactness and keeping together specific communities of interest. Some of those principals touted by the state were newly adopted with the new map and appear tailored to fit the map.

The plaintiffs, represented by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and others, say the Legislature defied instructions given by the court. They say the state is trying to reinvent its redistricting principles to avoid fixing the Voting Rights Act violation.

They say the state is trying to shift the argument from a key issue identified by the court: Whether the map includes two districts where Black voters have a realistic opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice or just one.

The three judges — Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus and District Judges Anna M. Manasco and Terry F. Moorer — ruled last year that Alabama’s previous map, passed in 2021, most likely violated the Voting Rights Act because it gave Black voters less opportunity that other citizens to elect a candidate of their choice. The judges said the appropriate remedy was an additional majority Black district or one that was close to majority Black. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the decision.

The map passed by the Legislature leaves Alabama, where one-fourth of residents are black, with one majority Black congressional district out of seven. The plaintiffs, Democratic elected officials, and other advocates said that defied the court’s instructions. The map passed along party lines, with Republicans supporting it and Democrats opposed.

Attorney General Steve Marshall and Alabama Solicitor General Edmund LaCour wrote in their 100-page findings of fact filed Saturday morning that the question before the court is not whether the Legislature’s 2023 plan created a second opportunity district for Black voters but whether it complies with the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act, which they maintain it does.

They wrote that the court must consider the new plan on its own merits, including new principles in the legislation. They wrote that the Voting Rights Act does not require minorities to have proportional representation and never requires maps that violate traditional redistricting principals, such as keeping together communities of interest, keeping districts compact, and keeping counties and cities together in districts.

“The question before this Court is whether the 2023 Plan complies with (Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act) and the Equal Protection Clause,” they wrote. “Unless Plaintiffs show that the Plan likely violates federal law, they have failed to show that the 2023 Plan does not remedy the likely (Voting Rights Act) violation this Court found in the 2021 Plan.”

But lawyers representing two of the groups who sued, the Milligan plaintiffs and the Caster plaintiffs, said in their 64-page document filed Saturday morning that Alabama is intentionally disregarding why it had to draw a new map.

“The question presented during these remedial proceedings is straightforward: Does the 2023 Plan remedy Alabama’s likely Section 2 violation by providing Black voters the opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice in a second congressional district?” they wrote. “It is beyond dispute that the 2023 Plan fails to do so.”

Under the new map, District 7 remains the only majority Black district, with a Black voting age population of 51%, down from 55% on the previous map. District 2 has the second highest proportion of Black voters on the new map, 40%, up from 30% on the previous map.

Reports from experts on both sides in the case that analyzed election history in the redrawn District 2 show Black-preferred candidates would have little chance to win.

“The white-preferred candidate in Congressional District 2, Alabama’s proposed remedial district, would defeat the Black-preferred candidate in virtually every election contest analyzed,” the plaintiffs wrote. “Under any measure of an opportunity district, CD 2 fails to perform.”

The plaintiffs noted the source of the state’s new redistricting principles adopted with the new map to try to show they were intended to change the rules to avoid fixing the Voting Rights Act violation.

During Monday’s hearing, lawyers for the plaintiffs played portions of video depositions from the two Republican lawmakers who co-chaired the Legislature’s reapportionment committee.

Rep. Chris Pringle, R-Mobile, testified that he did not know who wrote the new principles. Sen. Steve Livingston, R-Scottsboro, testified that he thought Edmund LaCour, the state solicitor general who is arguing the case, wrote them.

The plaintiffs say the state is asking the court to disregard its finding that Alabama discriminates against Black voters by having only one opportunity district.

“By muddying and confusing the Court’s remedial process, Alabama refuses to afford its Black citizens equal access to the State’s political process,” they wrote. “If there were any doubt that Section 2 remains essential to the protection of voting rights in America, Alabama’s behavior in this case—six decades after the passage of the Voting Rights Act—silences it, resoundingly.”

An example of the new principles is a requirement to keep Baldwin and Mobile counties together as a “community of interest.” A plan proposed by the plaintiffs split Mobile County to help create a second majority Black district.

There are three groups of plaintiffs who filed lawsuits. Plaintiffs in the Milligan case are voters Evan Milligan, Shalela Dowdy, Letetia Jackson, Khadidah Stone, Greater Birmingham Ministries, and the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP.

Plaintiffs in the Caster case are voters Marcus Caster, Lakeisha Chestnut, Bobby Lee DeBouse, Benjamin Jones, Rodney Allen Love, Manasseh Powell, Ronald Smith, and Wendell Thomas. The court has combined the Milligan and Caster cases.

Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, is the lead plaintiff in a third case that also includes Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, as well as voters Eddie Billingsley, Leonette W. Slay, Darryl Andrews and Andrew Walker.