Louisiana v. Callais: An End to a “Disastrous Misadventure”

“Non-African American voters” from Louisiana have successfully challenged a lower court’s efforts to dictate to the state legislature how to redraw legislative districts following the 2020 census.

The core question: Does compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 justify the use of race in drawing the lines that define legislative districts?

RTW’s read: Voting rights in a democracy are sacrosanct, and the U.S. admittedly has a spotty track record on this issue—but gerrymandering voting districts to favor historically disenfranchised groups is not the answer.

THE CASE AT A GLANCE

Case Name: Louisiana v. Callais (consolidated with Press Robinson v. Callais)

Docket No.: No. 24-109, No. 24-110

Status: Decided

Decision Date: April 29, 2026

Vote: 6–3, affirmed and remanded

Author: Alito, writing for the Court

Lower Court: U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, affirmed

Question Presented: These [consolidated] cases here concern whether Louisiana’s new congressional map is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.”

VOTE BREAKDOWN

MAJORITY: Alito, Roberts, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett

CONCURRENCE: Thomas, joined by Gorsuch

DISENT: Kagan, joined by Sotomayor, Jackson

BACKGROUND

After the 2020 U.S. Census, Louisiana’s legislature redrew the state’s six congressional districts. The result was one majority-African American district and five minority-African American districts. Lower courts found this unconstitutional. The legislature redrew the lines a second time, creating two majority-African American districts and prompting fresh litigation by a group of “non-African-American voters” claiming that the new map was racially gerrymandered and violated the 14^th and 15^th Amendments of the Constitution. This time, a panel of judges agreed and ruled that the new configuration violated the Constitution.

WHY THE COURT TOOK THIS CASE

When the Louisiana legislature redrew the map a second time, it intentionally used race as a factor because the lower court had ordered it to redraw the lines in order to create a second majority African-American district. The constitutionally valid use of race in any government determination is vanishingly rare, and the question of whether the Voting Rights Act (VRA) would ever justify the intentional use of race to redraw districts had never been determined by the Supreme Court.