The U.S. Supreme Court changed the legal standards governing racial gerrymandering and Section 2 vote-dilution cases on Wednesday with its decision in Louisiana v. Callais. The new standard is expected to make it more difficult for minority voters to prevail in these challenges.
In Short
In this case, the U.S. Supreme Court asked itself (again) whether states can rely on race when drawing legislative districts to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
In a highly anticipated opinion, the Court answered yes — kind of. In practice, Callais significantly narrows how Section 2 can be used to challenge racial discrimination and vote dilution in redistricting.
The majority held that compliance with Section 2, “when properly construed,” can be a compelling interest that justifies some use of race in drawing a new Congressional map. But, importantly, the majority opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, clarified that when properly construed, "§ 2 imposes liability only when the evidence supports a strong inference that the State intentionally drew its districts to afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race."
This language suggests that, for the first time since Congress added the “results” test to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in 1982, federal courts will now have to focus on intent behind alleged racial discrimination in gerrymandering cases, not just the real‑world effects of the map.
The Background
In 2022, a group of Black voters led by Press Robinson, a Louisiana resident, challenged Louisiana’s congressional map. They argued that lawmakers weakened their voting strength by approving a plan with only one majority-Black congressional district, even though Black people make up about 30% of the state’s population.
After years of separate Section 2 litigation over Louisiana’s map, the legislature enacted SB8 in January 2024, adding a second majority-Black district as a remedial map.
Twelve plaintiffs then sued in the Western District of Louisiana, claiming SB8 itself was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander that violated the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
A three‑judge district court agreed in part, concluding that the new map violated the Fifteenth Amendment. It issued a preliminary injunction against SB8. Louisiana and other defendants sought emergency relief, and on May 15, 2024, the Supreme Court stayed that ruling, allowing its two majority‑Black districts to remain in place for the 2024 midterm elections while the case proceeded.
Vote‑Dilution Claims and the Gingles Test
For the last 40 years, courts have used three “preconditions” to analyze Section 2 vote‑dilution claims, as set out in Thornburg v. Gingles:
- A minority group must be large and geographically compact enough to form a majority in a single‑member district.
- The group must be politically cohesive.
- The group is usually defeated by a cohesive white majority.
If those preconditions were met, a court then looked at the “totality of the circumstances” to decide whether a map unlawfully diluted minority voting power.
Plaintiffs did not have to prove that legislators acted with discriminatory intent. Showing discriminatory results was enough to justify redrawing districts under Section 2.
How Callais Reshapes Section 2 Vote-Dilution Cases
The Supreme Court has long assumed that compliance with the Voting Rights Act can be a compelling interest that may justify considering race in redistricting, but only when the state has a strong basis in evidence that the VRA likely requires the race-conscious district, and the map is narrowly tailored to that interest.
On April 29, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the district court in a 6–3 decision. The majority first reaffirmed that complying with Section 2 of the VRA can qualify as a compelling governmental interest capable of satisfying strict scrutiny when a state considers race in redrawing congressional districts.
But the Court then significantly narrowed what Section 2 actually prohibits, asking whether the statute, as written and amended in 1982, allows states to rely on the Gingles “results” test to justify remedial maps like SB8.
The Court did not officially strike down Section 2, but it concluded that the remedial map in Louisiana violated the Fifteenth Amendment. The majority reasoned that the state’s intentional creation of a majority-minority district based primarily on race — even in the name of complying with Section 2 — amounts to unconstitutional racial discrimination in voting unless it falls within strict, newly articulated limits on race‑conscious line‑drawing.
Going forward, if a state legislature wants to create additional majority-minority districts, it will have to meet those heightened constitutional constraints, not just satisfy Gingles and the statutory “results” test.
Interestingly, the U.S. Supreme Court recently reaffirmed the Gingles framework in Allen v. Milligan (2023). But Callais now imposes new constitutional limits on top of it, narrowing the circumstances under which states can use race‑conscious districts as a Section 2 remedy.
The majority insists that it is not overruling Gingles and that the basic framework remains. In practice, though, it seems like the effects‑focused approach is mostly erased. Instead, under the new Court decision, any remedy for a Section 2 violation that is race‑conscious must rest on a “strong inference of intentional discrimination.”
In other words, the majority treats the 1982 amendment language and legislative history from Congress as only targeting egregious vote‑dilution schemes. In the majority's view, Congress could not create a pure effects‑only regime without violating the 15th Amendment.
Has It All Led Up to This?
Justice Elena Kagan’s strongly worded dissent argues that Louisiana v. Callais completes a line of cases eroding the VRA. She wrote:
"The Voting Rights Act is—or, now more accurately, was—one of the most consequential, efficacious, and amply justified exercises of federal legislative power in our Nation’s history … I dissent, then, from this latest chapter in the majority’s now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act."
She situates Callais after:
- Shelby County v. Holder (2013), where the Court struck down Section 4(b)’s coverage formula and effectively disabled Section 5’s preclearance regime, which had required jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to obtain federal approval before changing voting rules. Once preclearance was gone, Kagan argues, Section 2 became the primary enforcement mechanism of the Voting Rights Act.
- Brnovich v. DNC (2021), where the Court upheld Arizona voting restrictions and announced “guideposts” that make it harder to prove Section 2 violations in vote‑denial cases, narrowing what counts as a substantial burden and allowing broad state interests such as election integrity to outweigh significant racial impacts.
In Kagan’s view, Callais is the final step. By effectively re‑injecting an intent requirement into Section 2 redistricting cases against the will of Congress, the Court leaves the statute born of the civil rights movement technically still on the books but strips it of its force.
Related Resources
- A Quick Summary of Legal Battles Over Redistricting for 2026 (FindLaw’s Federal Courts)
- SCOTUS Hands a Win to ‘Conversion Therapy’ Providers (FindLaw’s Federal Courts)
- 'Gloom Of Night' For Plaintiff Before SCOTUS In U.S. Postal Service Lawsuit (FindLaw’s Federal Courts)
