Samuel Alito

Samuel Alito authored the 6-3 majority opinion in Louisiana v. Callais on 29 April 2026, striking down the Voting Rights Act's Section 2 requirement that states draw majority-minority congressional districts. The ruling overturned the 1986 Thornburg v. Gingles doctrine and freed Republican legislatures across the country to redraw maps without minority district constraints. The Supreme Court then issued a judgment forthwith on 5 May 2026 ordering immediate effect, bypassing the normal 32-day remand wait and forcing Louisiana to redraw at once.

Alito was appointed to the Supreme Court by President George W. Bush in 2006 and is among its most reliably conservative members. He has authored landmark opinions curtailing federal regulatory power, and his 2022 majority opinion overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating the federal right to abortion. On election law he has consistently sided with state legislatures over federal oversight.

Callais is Alito's most consequential election-law ruling. It does not merely adjust redistricting law at the margins; it removes the principal federal tool for protecting minority voting power in congressional map-drawing. The CFR assessed that Democrats may now need to flip roughly 25 seats to retake the House, compared with 3-5 before the ruling, because Republican-controlled states can freely collapse majority-minority districts into white Republican majorities.