Alabama Republicans Pass Last-Minute Gerrymander in Middle of Election

Republicans want to stop an active election so they can redraw the maps and strip Black political power.

Alabama Republicans approved two redistricting bills Friday, over the objections of Democrats and protesters who shouted their disapproval in the state Capitol.

Republican Governor Kay Ivey immediately signed into law the legislation, which would redraw the state Senate map and allow for new congressional primaries in the state if the Supreme Court lifts an injunction against drawing new congressional maps before 2030. Voters had already begun casting ballots in this year’s primaries.

Protesters filled the state Capitol on Friday, shouting their disapproval of both bills, and at one point, debate was halted in the House.

“And I know we are going to redistrict here at some point, and we are going to look at some of the census data, and you are going to look at some of the people in this room, you are going to look at me in the face, you are going to shake my hand, say everything nice, and you are going to redraw my district so I can’t come back,” Democratic state Representative Chris England, who is Black, said during the debate. He and other Democrats brought up Alabama’s legacy of segregation and voter suppression.

But Alabama Republicans weren’t deterred. “Alabama now stands ready to quickly act, should the courts issue favorable rulings in our ongoing redistricting cases,” Kay said in a statement after signing the legislation.

The move comes on the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision last week in Louisiana v. Callais, which gutted the Voting Rights Act and spurred Republican-led states across the South to begin redistricting procedures that would dilute majority-Black districts. But Alabama Republicans’ congressional effort may run afoul of that ruling, according to the ACLU of Alabama, which said in a statement that it was planning a lawsuit.

“For several years now, the court has been consistent: Alabama violated the 14th Amendment by intentionally discriminating against Black voters in its congressional and legislative maps,” ACLU of Alabama Director JaTaune Bosby Gilchrist said. “The Callais opinion even agrees.”

Trump Secretary Spent Last Year Making Reality TV Show With Family

Sean Duffy and his wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, who met as cast members on a Real World spinoff, are returning to their roots.

The U.S. secretary of transportation is supposed to oversee America’s transportation policy, but Sean Duffy has spent most of his tenure on vacation.

Duffy was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in January 2025. Since then, he’s spent seven months—nearly half of his time in office—galavanting across the country with his family.

The road trip was fodder for an upcoming reality television show called The Great American Road Trip, Duffy revealed Friday. The series was launched in partnership with Fox News, and is set to be released on YouTube in the lead-up to America’s 250th birthday.

But not all 50 states will get airtime. Instead, Duffy’s multimonth trip hit just eight states—most of them conservative bastions—as well as the nation’s capital: Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Texas, Arizona, Montana, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C.

In a promotional interview on Fox News Friday, Duffy confessed that the trek was his idea.

“I wanted to lean in to America’s 250th birthday,” Duffy said, reminding the panel that he and his wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, met on a road trip for MTV’s Real World spinoff, Road Rules: All Stars, in 1998.

“And so over the course of seven months we just kind of found these moments where I might be able to do some work, take the kids with me, do a road trip—and our motto is, ‘To love America is to see America.’” Duffy continued, “There’s so much to see in this beautiful country.”

oh my god -- Sean Duffy on Fox & Friends this morning announced that he spent parts of *7 MONTHS* (more than half a year!) on a roadtrip with his family to celebrate America's 250th anniversary pic.twitter.com/ix5Nzft3MX— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 8, 2026

Campos-Duffy later clarified that the straight-to-streaming family vacation emerged out of a prompt from Donald Trump, who urged his Cabinet to find ways to celebrate America ahead of the 250th anniversary.

“We thought we were going to do it on our iPhones and just do little reels, but then we started talking about it and we were like, ‘Let’s go back to our roots! Let’s do this one for free, we’ll put it onto YouTube, we’ll let the whole country see it,’” Campos-Duffy said. “Just one more family says, ‘Load up the car and let’s go spend time together, let’s make these memories, let’s see America during her birthday year.’

“Then we said we’ll have done something wonderful,” she added.

Preempting criticism of the major outing, Campos-Duffy claimed that the rest of America is living in a “PornHub world.”

“This is really wholesome, good family stuff,” she said.

Sean Duffy's wife, Rachel-Campos Duffy, on the 7 months her family spent on a roadtrip while Sean was supposed to be working as Transportation Secretary: "I'm gonna be really honest. We live in a PornHub world. This is really wholesome good family stuff." pic.twitter.com/YK8LS2NhYV— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 8, 2026

The couple urged American families to do the same, insisting that 2026 is the perfect year to explore the nation—though exactly how Americans are supposed to afford it is not clear.

The cost of oil and gas is through the roof due to the ongoing war with Iran. The average cost of gas nationwide is $4.54 per gallon, with large swaths of the country pushing $5 a gallon, according........

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