Alabama lawmakers responded in July by passing a revised map that maintained only one majority-Black district but boosted the percentage of Black voters in a second district from about 30% to almost 40%. A federal judicial panel on Tuesday decided that wasn’t good enough. But Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office said it will again ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review that decision.

Ongoing lawsuits in Georgia and Louisiana are using similar arguments to push for additional districts where Black voters could have more power. Democrats stand to gain because a majority of Black residents tend to vote for Democrats instead of Republicans.

A Florida redistricting case decided Saturday by a state judge also involved race, though it relied on provisions in the state constitution instead of the Voting Rights Act. That judge said the U.S. House map enacted by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis diminished Black voters’ ability to elect their candidate of choice in northern Florida. The judge directed Florida lawmakers to draw a new congressional map — a ruling that is likely to be appealed before it’s carried out.

The litigation in southern states is “more of a racial representation issue than it is a political representation issue,” said Michael McDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida who specializes in elections and redistricting. “But we can’t escape the political consequences, because we have a very closely balanced House of Representatives at the moment.”

Though Democrats stand to gain from court challenges in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Louisiana, Republicans appear poised to pick up seats in North Carolina, which also has experienced a series of legal twists.