Monday is the deadline for a special master appointed by a three-judge federal court to submit proposed Congressional district maps for Alabama to replace a map the judges found likely violated the Voting Rights Act.

Lawyers for the state, meanwhile, are hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court will grant their request for an emergency stay to block the three-judge court’s order. The state’s lawyers, Attorney General Steve Marshall and Solicitor General Edmund LaCour, say the map passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature in July complies with the Voting Rights Act.

Time is limited because Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen said a map needs to be in place by early October to prepare for the 2024 elections, either the one passed by the Legislature or a court-drawn map.

The decisions expected this week could help determine the outcome for a dispute that started two years ago. The key issue is whether Alabama’s congressional map, with one majority Black district out of seven, dilutes the influence of Black voters in a state where one-fourth of residents are Black.

The three-judge court ruled in January 2022 that a map passed by the GOP-led Legislature in 2021 likely violates the Voting Rights Act.

The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that decision in June 2023, sending the case back to the three-judge court.

In a special session in July, Republican lawmakers approved a new map over the objections of Democrats.

The new map made substantial changes but left District 7 in west Alabama as the only majority Black district. The three-judge court, which held a hearing August 14, found that legislators failed to follow the court’s guidance to create a second majority Black district or one close to majority Black, a district where Black voters would have an opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice.

On the Legislature’s new map, District 2 in southeast Alabama has the second highest proportion of Black voting age population at 40%. That was up from 30% on the previous map. But lawyers for the organizations and Black voters who sued to challenge the maps said the new District 2 would not be an opportunity district for Black voters because a recent history of elections showed the white-preferred candidates, Republicans, almost always receive more votes than the Black-preferred Democrats in the district.

The judges, Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus and District Judges Anna Manasco and Terry Moorer, said the Legislature’s decision not to create a second opportunity district for Black voters was the deciding point in the case.

“This case remains straightforward,” the judges wrote. “We are aware, however, of no other case — and the Secretary does not direct us to one — in which a state legislature, faced with a federal court order declaring that its electoral plan unlawfully dilutes minority votes and requiring a plan that provides an additional opportunity district, responded with a plan that the state concedes does not provide that district.”

But lawyers for the state, in their request to the Supreme Court for an emergency stay, said the map passed in July fixes problems with the 2021 map that were key issues in the previous rulings, including keeping the Black Belt whole to the extent possible and making Montgomery County whole within the new District 2. They said the plan follows redistricting principles and protects communities of interest in the Black Belt, the Gulf Coast, and the Wiregrass. They said the new District 2 is as close as possible to an opportunity district that could be drawn without what they said would be an unlawful racial gerrymander.

“The State of Alabama has been maligned as engaging in ‘open rebellion’ because it remedied the discriminatory effect in the 2021 Plan without going further to split Mobile, or Dothan, or the places in between on race-based lines,” Alabama’s lawyers wrote. “No State could constitutionally draw such plans. The Court should stay the District Court’s order enjoining the State from using the 2023 Plan to allow the State a meaningful opportunity to obtain appellate review, which can proceed on an expedited basis if the Court deems necessary.”

The three-judge court ordered the special master and his team to submit three proposed maps. Parties in the case will have three days to file objections. The court scheduled a hearing for Oct. 3.

Read more: Who are court-appointed officials assigned to draw Alabama’s congressional map?