Louisiana v. Callais: What the Supreme Court’s Latest Voting Rights Debate Really Means

The Supreme Court’s recent oral arguments in *Louisiana v. Callais* (2025) have sparked widespread concern among voting rights advocates who fear that the case could pose an existential threat to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). The section prohibits any voting law, practice, or procedure that “results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color,” or membership in certain language minority groups. This provision of the VRA also incorporates a “results test” that, with the 1982 Amendments and clarification by jurisprudence in Thornburg v. Gingles (1986), bars any practices that have an effect of voter dilution, regardless of intentionality.

Following a challenge to a 2022 congressional map from Black voters under Section 2, a federal court ordered Louisiana to draw a second congressional district likely to elect a Black-preferred candidate, given that Black voters make up about a third of the state’s population but had only ever constituted a majority in one of six districts. Louisiana complied, creating a new 2024 congressional map—but then non-Black voters sued, claiming the state had unconstitutionally created a district based on race in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

With the Court hearing oral arguments, many speculate that the heart of Section 2, the “results test,” could be at risk. But as the oral argument developed, the Justices appeared to be grappling with more nuanced questions about how—not just whether—states may use race in districting to comply with federal law. And as oral arguments came to a close, attention turned to perhaps the most important doctrinal tool in the Section 2 toolkit: the Gingles test.

Oral Arguments: The Court’s Focus and the Heart of the Debate

At oral arguments, Janai Nelson, representing a coalition of Black voters, defended the legality of the 2024 map, referencing the Court’s recent decision in Allen v. Milligan (2023), which allowed race-conscious redistricting to remedy Section 2 violations. In opposition, Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga argued the Court should reconsider its past voting rights precedents, such as Allen and Gingles, suggesting that Section 2 is unconstitutional if it compels states to use race-based redistricting. However, representatives on behalf of the Trump administration made it clear that a constitutional challenge to Section 2 of the VRA was not their goal; rather, simply the practice of creating a minority-majority district—which is technically not mandated by Section 2—violated the Equal Protection Clause.

Numerous additional lines of argument arose during the hearings. For instance, Justice Kavanaugh inquired about whether race-based remedies under Section 2 required time limits or not. This line of thought is not dissimilar to those raised in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003)—wherein Justice O’Connor suggested that race-based considerations in college admissions should be phased out within 25 years—and Shelby County v. Holder (2013), wherein Chief Justice Roberts argued that Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act was unconstitutional as it imposed restrictions on states that were no longer responsive to the current conditions in the voting districts with histories of racial discrimination in voting processes.

For his part, Justice Alito questioned whether the 2024 map was an example of partisan gerrymandering rather than racial, citing Rucho v. Common Cause (2019), a case where the Court ruled that federal courts lacked the jurisdiction to rule on partisan gerrymandering since it was a nonjusticiable issue. Most notably, an argument raised by Trump administration lawyer Hashim Mooppan found considerable traction amongst the conservative justices: that the case concerns not the consideration of race in redistricting, but when race trumps traditional neutral factors. The Trump administration advocated making Section 2 claims harder by requiring proof that race, not politics, drove the refusal to create majority-minority districts.

Enter the Gingles Test: Clarifying the Legal Path Forward

As the oral arguments neared their end, the justices focused their attention on Section 2’s enforcement on the ground through the “Gingles test.” Established in *Thornburg v. Gingles* (1986), this test has been the foundational standard for proving vote dilution under Section 2. The test asks three main questions:

1. Is the minority group sufficiently large and geographically compact to form a majority in a single-member district?
2. Is the minority group politically cohesive—that is, does it usually vote together?
3. Does the majority vote sufficiently as a bloc to usually defeat the minority’s candidate of choice?

If these preconditions are met, courts then look at the “totality of circumstances” to decide if a violation exists.

During the arguments, several justices and advocates acknowledged that the rigid application of Gingles could sometimes force states toward explicitly race-conscious line drawing—and thus potential constitutional conflict. Some justices inquired about the possibility of clarifying or modifying the Gingles framework to ensure that, when states comply with Section 2, they do so in ways that are genuinely race-neutral where possible, and that race only becomes a predominant factor as a last resort.

The debate suggested an emerging consensus: that any revision of Section 2 doctrine must keep its guardrails sturdy enough to prevent minority vote dilution, but flexible enough to avoid invitations to unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. As legal experts highlighted in their briefs, perhaps this moment is ripe for a new, clarified approach—a Gingles 2.0—that explicitly directs states and lower courts to first exhaust all legitimately race-neutral means of compliance before considering remedies that rely heavily on racial data.

Conclusion:

The Court seems less likely to directly invalidate Section 2’s results test than to recalibrate how it interacts with constitutional constraints. The precedent is strong that Congress can prohibit disparate impacts (again, see Thornburg v. Gingles (1986) and Allen v. Milligan (2023)), but the Court’s more recent Shaw v. Reno (1993) line bars states from subordinating traditional districting criteria to race without strong justification. What Callais may ultimately decide is how robust a Section 2 remedy can be under the Constitution—and how much leeway states have to balance compliance with race-neutrality.

Louisiana v. Callais asks the Court and the country: Can we both protect minority voting power and avoid the pitfalls of race-dominated districting? The answer may depend, more than ever, on how the Supreme Court clarifies the Gingles test and the practical steps it outlines for states trying to walk this tightrope.