Louisiana v. Callais
SCOTUS ruling requiring Section 2 majority-minority remedies to survive strict scrutiny, not just VRA compliance.
On 29 April 2026 the Supreme Court ruled 6-3, Alito writing, that Louisiana's second majority-Black congressional district was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, curtailing rather than abolishing Section 2's protections; Republican-led states have since redrawn maps for an estimated 12-15 House seats.
Last refreshed: 4 August 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
With Alabama voiding primaries and South Carolina stalled, how many post-Callais seats will Republicans actually bank?
Timeline for Louisiana v. Callais
Mentioned in: Approval hits a record low for both terms
US Midterms 2026Mentioned in: Tennessee map survives its first test
US Midterms 2026Mentioned in: Moore and Wess win Alabama runoffs
US Midterms 2026Mentioned in: Florida locks its map for November
US Midterms 2026Callais draws out a Black incumbent
US Midterms 2026Background
Louisiana v. Callais (No. 24-109) is the Supreme Court case that curtailed Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Decided 6-3 on 29 April 2026, with Justice Samuel Alito writing for the majority, the Court struck down Louisiana's second majority-Black congressional district, drawn in 2024 under a prior court order, as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander: its intentional race-based creation, the Court held, violated the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments' equal-protection guarantees.
The ruling curtails rather than eliminates Section 2's majority-minority remedy. It does not hold that Section 2 can never require such a district; it narrows the circumstances in which a race-conscious remedy survives strict scrutiny. In doing so the majority discarded the four-decade-old Thornburg framework from 1986, joining Shelby County v. Holder (2013, preclearance) and Brnovich v. DNC (2021, vote denial) as the third Roberts Court ruling to narrow VRA protections.
The Court's 5 May judgment-forthwith order gave the ruling immediate effect nationwide, collapsing pending Section 2 litigation in Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina and prompting Republican-led legislatures to redraw maps within days.
States redraw maps after Callais ruling
The ruling's 5 May 2026 judgment forthwith skipped the standard 32-day remand wait, so Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina and Mississippi began redrawing within days. Alabama went furthest: it voided its own primary mid-count on 19 May and reran on 11 August under lines that eliminate the majority-Black seat held by Representative Shomari Figures.
The precedent remains unsettled rather than closed: on 23 July a federal panel upheld Tennessee's map splitting Memphis, the state having successfully argued partisan rather than racial intent, a defence Rucho v. Common Cause permits but that Callais's own holding never addressed.