Louisiana v. Callais

In Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court considered the question of whether Louisiana’s “intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.”

The Opinion

On April 29, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6–3 opinion by Justice Samuel Alito that the configuration of Louisiana’s second Black-majority district was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, affirming the judgment of the three-judge district court below.

In addition to striking down the map as a racial gerrymander, the court’s opinion significantly reworked the 40-year-old establishing in Thornburg v. Gingles, making three changes that collectively will make it much harder for voters of color to win cases filed under Section 2 of the Voting Right Act.

First, the ruling requires illustrative (sample) maps submitted by Section 2 plaintiffs as part of their proof meet all of a jurisdiction’s political objectives, including goals related to the protection of incumbents.

Second, the decision requires that plaintiffs to show that the racial bloc voting required under Gingles framework “cannot be explained by partisan affiliation.”

Finally, in the totality of circumstances phase, the Callais decision requires plaintiffs to present strong evidence of “present-day intentional racial discrimination regarding voting.” As explained by the court, “Discrimination that occurred some time ago, as well as present-day disparities that are characterized as the ongoing ‘effects of societal discrimination,’ are entitled to much less weight.”

Background

The Callais case arises from the redrawing of Louisiana’s congressional map after the 2020 census and subsequent litigation in two different federal district courts.

Shortly after the Louisiana legislature adopted a new congressional map in 2021, Black voters and organizations filed lawsuits in Middle District of Louisiana challenging the map. The suits contended that the map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because it diluted the votes of Black voters in central Louisiana. As a remedy, the plaintiffs asked the court to order the state to redraw the map to create a second Black-majority congressional district in affected areas.

The district court ruled in their favor, granting an injunction that blocked use of the map. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently affirmed the ruling, and, in early 2024, the state legislature redrew the map to add a new Black-majority congressional district running between Shreveport and Baton Rouge (though notably a very differently configured one from the one Black plaintiffs had suggested).

However, a group of white voters then challenged the redrawn map in a second federal lawsuit filed in the Western District of Louisiana. Their suit contended that the configuration of the map’s new Black-majority congressional district was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander under the Fourteenth Amendment. Black plaintiffs from the original cases intervened in the new case.

After a trial, a three-judge panel ruled in favor of the white plaintiffs. Both Louisiana and Black voters from the original case then appealed to the Supreme Court, which first heard argument in the case in March 2025.

However, rather than decide the case, the Court announced on the last day of its term that the Callais case would be held over for reargument in the fall. In conjunction with the reargument, the Court asked the parties to brief a different question: Whether creation of a majority-minority district as a remedy for vote dilution found by a court under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act violates either the 14th or 15th Amendments.

Louisiana defended the constitutionality of its redrawn map in first argument, but on reargument, it has taken the broad position in a supplemental brief filed on August 27, 2025, that all “race-based redistricting is unconstitutional.”

The Brief

The Brennan Center’s friend-of-the-court brief provides context for the Supreme Court by discussing the transformational role that Section 2 vote-dilution claims have played since their advent in the 1980s in expanding electoral opportunities for voters of color at the local government level, especially in the South.

The brief notes that although the Callais case involves a congressional map, nearly half of all Section 2 cases since the 1982 amendments to the Voting Rights Act have challenged the use of at-large elections by cities, school districts, counties, and other local government bodies.

Using historical and more contemporary evidence, the brief also examines how these cases, as well as others that were settled before trial, resulted in hundreds of local government bodies over the course of four decades moving from at-large elections to single-member districts or other less discriminatory electoral systems and the positive impact those changes have had on local government representation for voters of color.

The brief also discusses how the demanding vote-dilution framework adopted by the Court in Thornberg v. Gingles (1986) has been rigorously applied by lower courts and acts to limit overapplication of Section 2 by requiring that plaintiffs establish the existence of racially polarized voting that is so severe that the “pull, haul, and trade” of politics is no longer possible for voters of color.

Finally, the brief concludes by discussing how the flexibility that jurisdictions have in remedying vote dilution further addresses any concerns about the constitutionality of vote-dilution claims. The brief argues that far from a mandate for universal race-based districting, Section 2 is a carefully tailored tool that courts have use successfully to address race-based politics and enhance the opportunity of minority voters in the most racially divided communities to elect candidates of their choice.

Case Documents