ATHENS, Ala. — A U.S. Supreme Court ruling Monday, allowing Alabama to use redrawn congressional districts for the 2022 elections, comes after a lower court had ruled that the maps disenfranchised Black voters and that the state should have two minority districts instead of the one it has now.

It also comes before a May primary election, and only days since the appeal was filed by the state.

Had the Supreme Court upheld the three-judge district court decision, the state would have had until Feb. 11 to produce a new congressional district map.

Qualifying for all other state races ended Jan. 28.

“The timing is very unfortunate,” Noah Wahl, chairman of the Limestone County Republican Party, said about the voting issue coming so near to an election. “But I’m pleased the court acted so quickly. For Alabama, it’s the best thing that could have happened. We were facing two primary elections at a great expense.”

For the president of the Limestone County NAACP, the timing was not relevant.

“Dr. (Martin Luther) King had a quote, it’s always a good time to do the right thing,” said Wilbert L. Woodruff. “Redrawing the maps would have been the right thing. It would have been a good thing.”

Still, he said the Supreme Court decision didn’t surprise him.

“I’m very disappointed with the ruling that came down. They (the lower court) voted unanimously to look into the matter and see if there wasn’t something that could be done to give minorities and people of color another district where they could elect the candidate of their choice. However … when we had that three-judge ruling, I thought, something’s not right. I thought, this isn’t going to stand. And, fast forward to (Monday), and it did not. It’s a big letdown for our Black community and our community of color. Again, it seems we’re always last to the table and have less to chew on once we get there.”

Ken Hines, a former Limestone County Democrat Party committee member, also found the decision disheartening, and said that the division it causes portends deeper rifts.

“Of course I was disappointed,” Hines said, “because the court keeps saying something that is disturbing — and what it is saying is that gerrymandering and the kind of voter suppression it creates is not the court’s business, and it leaves those things in place.

“There are a few things you can’t do. You can’t pretend that the agents that are creating this are going to solve this. And you can’t pretend that it isn’t impacting groups of people to be represented in lawmaking bodies, and so on. Those are true things, and if the courts are unwilling to recognize and address those problems, this becomes a very hard solve.

“What is maybe the saddest part of it is that you can gerrymander the state of Alabama to prevent Blacks from being elected to the legislature. The only reason you can do that is that you can act with some confidence that Blacks are not going to win elections where there is not a shortage of white voters. Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to gerrymander. Likewise, whites are not going to win where there are a majority of Black voters.

“The kind of divisiveness that all of this creates, that it could occur, and is occurring, and that the institutions that would be able to address this issue are unwilling to address this issue, it’s disingenuous for the court to imply that it may address this later.

“If they address it later, it’s too late for this election. It’s too late for a group of people who should have been better represented.”

Wahl also sees deeper issues in the ruling, and those that involve more than color lines.

“The fact is that we’re not able to make two Democrat districts,” Wahl said. “The numbers just don’t add up.”

Still, the party chairman said he favors redistricting, but redistricting based on politics and not race.

“I find it offensive that many people are (prompting redistricting) by the color of people,” he said. “To me, we’re all people. And I want to see all people as being treated fairly.”

Hines, like Woodruff, said that the timing of the decision shouldn’t trump voting issues.

“It is when it is,” Hines said. “The legislature had the opportunity to draw fair lines and they didn’t. That they did that so close to an election shouldn’t excuse that they did that. The legislature said, ‘Oh it was this way before and it was OK.’ … That’s like saying, I got away with it last time, what happened, what changed?

“I don’t think it’s legitimate to say it’s too close to an election. It wouldn’t have been close to an election had they done it when they should have done it, but they didn’t. … We redistrict all the time. … It’s time to redistrict. We should do it; we should just do it fairly.”

Despite the timing of the decision, Woodruff, from the NAACP, said that this wouldn’t be the last time voting rights are addressed in Alabama.

“Republicans control the state down in Montgomery, and they seem to be holding the rest of the state down,” Woodruff said. “But as perplexing as it is to which way we will go, we are far from despair and giving up. This is just a temporary setback.”