Supreme Court ruling weakens Voting Rights Act in Louisiana redistricting case

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in Louisiana v. Callais tightened the path for minority voters to challenge congressional maps, handing another major blow to the Voting Rights Act and signaling that the Roberts court’s long retreat from the law is not over.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority on April 29, 2026, concluding that Louisiana’s 2024 map, SB8, was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The court said the Voting Rights Act did not require the state to create an additional majority-minority district in this case, even though the litigation began after a federal judge found Louisiana’s 2022 map likely violated Section 2 because it failed to include a second majority-Black district. Justice Elena Kagan dissented, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, warning that the majority had completed the law’s “demolition.” Election-law scholar Rick Hasen called the court’s approach a “wrecking ball.”

The case reached the justices after Louisiana redrew its congressional lines following the 2020 census. A district court in Robinson v. Ardoin had said the earlier map likely diluted Black voting power, pushing the Louisiana Legislature to adopt SB8 in 2024 and add a second majority-Black district. That district, a long and irregular shape stretching across parts of Shreveport, Alexandria, Lafayette and Baton Rouge, then became the focus of the constitutional fight over whether the state had relied too heavily on race.

In practical terms, the ruling makes it harder for plaintiffs to use Section 2 as a tool against maps that weaken Black, Latino and Native American representation. Lawyers and voting rights advocates have warned that the decision could embolden lawmakers in Louisiana and beyond to draw more aggressive districts while betting that legal challenges will be harder to win. That matters not just for statehouse battles, but for control of the House and state legislatures after the next round of redistricting.

The timing is immediate. Louisiana’s congressional primaries were set for May 16, 2026, with early voting scheduled to begin May 3. State Attorney General Liz Murrill and Secretary of State Nancy Landry said their lawyers were reviewing the opinion, and U.S. Rep. Troy Carter called it a devastating blow to equal representation. The court left the Voting Rights Act on the books, but after this ruling, the law’s central enforcement mechanism is far weaker for the next redistricting fights.