Louisiana v. Callais
The Supreme Court struck down Louisiana's second majority-Black congressional district as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, ruling that the Voting Rights Act — properly interpreted — never required Louisiana to draw it in the first place.
The decision fundamentally rewrites the legal test for voting-rights challenges to redistricting maps, making it far harder for minority voters nationwide to prove that a state map illegally dilutes their political power.
How it got here: A three-judge federal district court found SB8 violated the Equal Protection Clause; Louisiana and the Robinson plaintiffs appealed directly to the Supreme Court, which heard arguments twice across two Terms before ruling.
The Case in Depth
What happened
After the 2020 census, Louisiana drew a new congressional map with only one majority-Black district. A federal court ruled that map likely violated the Voting Rights Act for failing to include a second such district. To avoid a court-imposed map, Louisiana drew a new plan — called SB8 — that added a second majority-Black district connecting Black communities in Baton Rouge, Lafayette, and Shreveport. A separate group of plaintiffs then challenged SB8 itself as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander because race drove its design.
The question before the Court
Louisiana drew a new congressional map with a second majority-Black district to comply with a court order under the Voting Rights Act — did that race-conscious map violate the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection?
The Court's answer
Yes — SB8 is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The Court affirmed the lower court's ruling striking down the map, holding that Louisiana had no compelling interest to justify drawing the district primarily along racial lines. To reach that conclusion, the Court significantly tightened the legal standard for Section 2 vote-dilution claims. Under the new reading, Section 2 imposes liability only when there is a strong inference that a State intentionally drew its districts to give minority voters less opportunity because of their race — not simply because a map produces unequal racial outcomes.
Because Louisiana's vote-dilution plaintiffs could not meet this tighter standard at any step of the legal analysis, Section 2 never actually required the State to draw a second majority-Black district. Without a genuine legal obligation, Louisiana lacked the compelling interest needed to justify its race-conscious mapmaking, and SB8 therefore violated the Equal Protection Clause.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Minority communities across the country who have relied on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to challenge discriminatory district maps now face a much tougher legal standard. States can more easily shield maps by pointing to partisan or other race-neutral goals. Majority-minority districts that have given Black and Hispanic voters meaningful political representation for decades are more vulnerable to elimination.
What changes now
Louisiana's SB8 map is struck down as unconstitutional, and the case is sent back to the lower court for further proceedings. Louisiana must draw a new congressional map. The updated legal standard will apply nationally to pending and future Section 2 vote-dilution challenges, affecting redistricting litigation across the country. Existing majority-minority districts are not automatically invalidated but are more legally vulnerable under the new test.
What this does not decide
The Court explicitly says it does not overrule Allen v. Milligan (2023), which had upheld Alabama's vote-dilution challenge. The ruling also does not hold that Section 2 compliance can never justify race-based redistricting — only that Section 2, properly interpreted, did not require Louisiana's action here.
Concurrences and dissents
How the Justices voted
Majority (6). Justice Alito (author), joined by Justice Roberts, Justice Thomas, Justice Gorsuch, Justice Kavanaugh, and Justice Barrett.
Dissent (3). Justice Kagan (author), joined by Justice Sotomayor and Justice Jackson.
Concurrence — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas joined the majority in full but wrote separately to argue the Court should go even further. In his view, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act does not apply to redistricting at all, because drawing district lines is not a 'voting qualification,' 'prerequisite to voting,' or 'standard, practice, or procedure' within the statute's plain meaning. He would hold that no Section 2 challenge to a districting scheme should ever succeed.
Dissent — Justice Kagan
Justice Kagan argued the majority has converted Section 2 from an effects test — which Congress explicitly chose in 1982 to replace the discredited intent requirement of Mobile v. Bolden — back into an intent test nearly identical to Bolden. The new proof requirements will make vote-dilution claims nearly impossible to win, even when a state map has genuinely stripped minority communities of any chance to elect their preferred candidates. The dissent argued the majority's decision defies both Section 2's text and 40 years of precedent reaffirmed as recently as 2023 in Allen v. Milligan. Read the full dissent →
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- Louisiana openly designed SB8 to achieve a majority-Black voting-age population in District 6 — an express racial goal — so the Court applied strict scrutiny, the most demanding constitutional test, which requires a compelling government reason and a law closely tailored to that reason.
- The only potential compelling interest was compliance with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting practices that result in minority voters having less opportunity to elect their preferred candidates. The Court held that genuine Section 2 compliance can satisfy strict scrutiny — but only when Section 2 actually requires the race-based action.
- The Court reread Section 2: it imposes liability only when circumstances give rise to a strong inference that the State intentionally drew districts to give minority voters less opportunity because of their race. A map that merely produces unequal racial outcomes while following permissible, race-neutral criteria — including drawing for partisan advantage — does not violate Section 2.
- The Court updated the four-decade-old Gingles framework (the legal checklist from a 1986 case for proving Section 2 vote-dilution claims) with three key changes: plaintiffs' illustrative maps must not use race and must meet all the State's political goals including incumbency protection; evidence of racial polarization must control for party affiliation; and the totality-of-circumstances inquiry must focus on present-day intentional discrimination, not historical patterns or general social disparities.
- Applying the updated framework to the underlying vote-dilution lawsuit that prompted Louisiana to draw SB8: the dilution plaintiffs failed at every step — their illustrative maps did not protect the Republican incumbents Louisiana prioritized; their racial-polarization evidence did not separate race from partisan differences; and their totality-of-circumstances case rested on historical discrimination rather than current intentional conduct.
- Because the vote-dilution claim could not succeed under the updated standard, Section 2 never actually required Louisiana to create a second majority-minority district. Without that obligation, the State had no compelling interest to justify SB8's racial design, making the map an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Limits Thornburg v. Gingles (478 U. S. 30)
The Court updates Gingles's framework with tighter proof requirements, significantly narrowing when Section 2 vote-dilution claims can succeed.
Distinguishes Allen v. Milligan (599 U. S. 1)
The majority says Allen addressed only Alabama's proposed evidentiary standard and did not resolve the central issues decided here.