Attorneys were to file briefs today to persuade three federal judges who will now decide whether Alabama’s congressional lines remain in place.

The case is a legal battle between activists seeking to maintain a new seat held by a Black Democrat and state leaders who want the lines reversed.

The ruling will determine the fate of the redrawn 2nd Congressional District in south Alabama which was won by Rep. Shomari Figures and ushered in the second Democrat and Black member to the state’s nine-member Congressional Delegation.

The case at the Hugo Black Federal Courthouse in Birmingham ended Feb. 26 and briefs from lawyers on both sides are due to the court today.

“This trial will determine whether the map that was put into place and used for the 2024 elections will be used for the remainder of the decade,” Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation, told AL.com.

The foundation is one of the legal representatives in the joined cases, along with several other plaintiffs including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

Jenkins is also executive director of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, an affiliate organization which is chaired by Eric Holder, a former U.S. attorney general in the Barack Obama administration.

Jenkins said Alabama’s case carries national significance as the court decides whose interpretation of the Voting Rights Act prevails.

“The state of Alabama here is trying to reverse progress on equal representation for Black voters, and we’ve been doing everything in our power to stop that,” Jenkins said. “This is something we’re seeing in redistricting across the country. It’s incredibly important to show that progress can still be made, and we can still have our rights vindicated through the courts.”

On the other side, lawyers representing the state of Alabama and Secretary of State Wes Allen have argued that the earlier map drawn by the legislature was fair and should be restored.

Allen declined to elaborate as the state awaits a ruling.

“As a rule, the Secretary of State’s office does not comment on pending litigation,” he said in a statement to AL.com. “We are following the case very closely.”

In court filings the state restated previous arguments that the Legislature’s district maps were based on traditional methods which allowed partisan political goals but were absent of racial considerations.

The Supreme Court ruled in the Allen v. Milligan case that Alabama’s 2021 congressional voting maps diluted the power of Black voters, in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Then in Nov. 2024, Figures won his race after a three-judge federal panel ordered the state to draw new congressional lines. When lawmakers failed to draw a map that the court considered fair, a special master was appointed to do the job.

Figures then defeated Republican Caroline Dobson to represent District 2, which includes Montgomery and stretches across the black belt and reaches south into portions of Mobile.

The judicial panel in the new trial are the same judges who ordered the current district map in favor of the plaintiffs. The panel includes two appointees of President Trump.

“It is incredibly important. There is a textbook violation of the Voting Rights Act that was in Alabama,” Jenkins said. “The reason that this case was even back in the trial court the past few weeks was because the state of Alabama just refused to accept that they lost this case and the map that exists that provides two Black opportunity districts is actually required by Section 2 and is something that they need to keep in place.”