Louisiana v. Callais

Following the 2020 United States census, Louisiana was assigned six seats in the United States House of Representatives. The census found that about one-third of the people in the state were Black. The Louisiana State Legislature, where the Republican Party held a majority in both chambers, approved new maps that were largely unchanged from the previous decade, giving the state five districts with white majorities and one with a black majority. Black voters challenged the new maps in court, alleging it violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), which prohibits racial discrimination in elections. In the ensuing case, Ardoin v. Robinson, U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick ruled in June 2022 that the map violated the VRA and ordered the legislature to draw a new map including a second majority-Black district to reflect the census results. Louisiana's Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin sought a stay of the order from the Fifth Circuit, which was denied. Ardoin then sought relief from the Supreme Court, which stayed the order pending its decision in Allen v. Milligan, a similar redistricting case from Alabama. In June 2023, the Supreme Court ruled in Allen v. Milligan that Alabama's new redistricting map violated the VRA. Consequently, the Court lifted its stay of Dick's ruling, returning the case to the Fifth Circuit. The Fifth Circuit ordered the state legislature to pass a map compliant with the Allen decision by January 30, 2024, to ensure readiness for the 2024 general elections, or else Dick would draw up a new map. The state legislature held a special session in January 2024 and approved a new map, in which its 6th congressional district became the state's second majority-Black district. After the new maps were issued, a group calling themselves "non-African-American voters" filed suit, claiming the districts were racially gerrymandered and violated the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. ==Supreme Court==

Two separate petitions were filed with the Supreme Court to hear the challenge on the district panel's ruling, one from the state itself (Louisiana v. Callais) and another from Black voters and civil rights organizations such as the NAACP (Robinson v. Callais). The Supreme Court granted certiorari to both cases and consolidated them in November 2024. Initial oral arguments were held on March 24, 2025. On June 27, 2025, the Court ordered reargument for the 2025 term, with only Justice Clarence Thomas dissenting. During the summer recess prior to the 2025 term, the Supreme Court directed all parties to submit supplemental briefs addressing whether the new maps violated the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Several news commentators said this move suggested the Court was weighing whether compliance with Section 2 of the VRA would be unconstitutional, further weakening the VRA. Among these briefs, Louisiana submitted a brief stating the State was no longer defending its position in the case at the Supreme Court, and instead argued to advance the claim that the new maps violated the 14th and 15th Amendments. The second oral session for the case was heard on October 15, 2025. Court observers noted that the court's conservative majority appeared ready to limit the use of the VRA for redistricting, suggesting that the Act's mandates might have a time limit, an argument similar to the one used to end affirmative action in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. While observers did not expect the Court to strike down Section 2 entirely, they suggested the conservative justices would increase the evidentiary burden for proving racial discrimination in redistricting. Decision The court issued its decision on April 29, 2026. In a 6–3 decision split along ideological lines, the court affirmed the ruling of a federal district court panel that the state's new map was an illegal racial gerrymander. The majority opinion was written by Samuel Alito, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. Alito wrote: "Allowing race to play any part in government decision-making represents a departure from the constitutional rule that applies in almost every other context. Compliance with section 2 thus could not justify the state's use of race-based redistricting here. The state's attempt to satisfy the Middle District's ruling, although understandable, was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander." The decision did not hold Section 2 of the VRA to be unconstitutional, nor did overturn multiple cases including Allen v. Milligan (2023), but Alito said that major developments since one of the last major tests of Section 2, Thornburg v. Gingles (1986), required additional considerations. Gingles provided for three pre-conditions: that the minority voters were "sufficiently numerous and compact to constitute a majority in a reasonably configured district", that they voted in a "politically cohesive" manner, and that the majority voted in a bloc as to defeat the minority's preferred candidate. If all three preconditions were met, the court then should evaluate whether the political process was not equally open to minority voters. He concluded that a successful challenger must now prove that a state "intentionally drew its districts to afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race." Failing to "disentangle race from the state's race-neutral considerations, including politics," will now likely lead to an unsuccessful suit. showing a proportional representation map that does not use majority-minority districts, unlike the 2025 Louisiana's congressional district map that the court struck down. The multi-member districts have the ability to elect two Black representatives in the state. In his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the court "should never have interpreted §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to effectively give racial groups 'an entitlement to roughly proportional representation. Justice Elena Kagan wrote the dissent, joined by Sotomayor and Jackson, stating: "The consequences are likely to be far-reaching and grave. Today's decision renders Section 2 all but a dead letter." The timing of the ruling would also be critical in relation to the 2026 general election. Some Republican-controlled states had already initiated mid-census partisan redistricting in mid-2025, such as Texas, backed by President Donald Trump to secure more Republican representatives in the House. In December 2025, the Supreme Court allowed the use of the Texas redistricting maps and subsequently rejected the Republicans' challenge to California's map in February 2026. In March 2026, the Court also blocked a lower court mandate to redraw a congressional district based in Staten Island following a challenge by Black voters in the district. Multiple media outlets characterized Callais as a landmark decision, suggesting the additional restrictions on Section 2 of the VRA will likely make it significantly more difficult to challenge redistricting. The decision is expected to allow southern states to eliminate majority-minority districts to favor the Republican party's representation in Congress and leading to disenfranchisement of numerous voters. The decision was seen as a culmination of Roberts' efforts to weaken the VRA since he was on the bench, and other outlets considered the VRA all but dead from the decision and harming the country's democratic process. == Aftermath ==

The Supreme Court's decision was issued amid efforts by several states to perform mid-decade redistricting. This movement was initially championed by President Donald Trump during his second term to push for Republican control of the House of Representatives, and was led by a new legislative map in Texas. States with Democratic majorities followed suit to offset these changes, typically by seeking voter approval for new maps, as seen with California's Proposition 50. The timing of the decision was not expected to have a significant impact for the 2026 general election, as it was issued after multiple states had already begun the primary process; however, it was expected to influence the 2028 election as states would have sufficient time to implement new maps. Florida, for example, had already begun redistricting as part of the larger national effort to add more Republican districts prior to the ruling and their primaries. The state passed its new maps the day the decision was handed down. Some states, however, indicated they will seek to suspend their 2026 primaries to institute maps reflecting the Callais decision. Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry and Attorney General Liz Murrill announced the day after the decision that they were suspending the state's May 16 primary to allow the legislature to draw a new compliant map. This occurred despite that mail-in ballots already having been sent to overseas and early-voting residents. From a request from the state over challenges from minority voters, the district court ordered that their injunction on the 2024 map should remain in place and the state "will be afforded the opportunity to enact a Constitutionally compliant map" with the Callais decision on April 30, 2026. The minority voters challenged this through an emergency request to the Supreme Court, stating that the decision from Callais was still within the 32-day window before it would become finalized as per the Supreme Court rules, and that the Purcell principle, that court decisions affecting elections made too close to the election should not come into effect until after the election, still applies. On May 4, 2026, the Supreme Court granted the request by the non-block voter respondents to issue a judgment forthwith, making the Callais decision effective immediately, letting the district court order stand and allowing the state to proceed to redistrict for the 2026 election. While the order was unsigned, Alito wrote a concurring statement joined by Thomas and Gorsuch, while Jackson wrote a dissent to the order. Alabama, which had been required to include two majority-Black districts from the Supreme Court's decision in Allen v. Milligan (2023), filed an emergency motion with the court the day after the Callais ruling. The motion sought to stay an injunction placed by the District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, which had blocked the legislature's maps in favor of those constructed by a court-appointed special master. The district court had previously ruled that the legislature's maps remained racially gerrymandered and had ignored the Allen ruling. In its motion, the state argued that the Callais decision overrode the Allen ruling, justifying the use of legislature-drawn maps for the 2026 election even though early voting had already begun for the state primaries. Governor Kay Ivey also ordered a special session on May 1, 2026, to begin creating a new redistricting map concurrently with the emergency motion. ==See also==