LOS ANGELES – The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that Louisiana’s creation of a second majority-Black district to remedy discrimination in the state’s congressional map violates the U.S. Constitution in Louisiana v. Callais, a landmark case that dismantled long-standing protections for minority voters in redistricting.
The decision in Louisiana v. Callais followed years of legal challenges under the Voting Rights Act and a preliminary ruling by a federal court that Louisiana had discriminated against Black voters in its congressional redistricting plan. When Louisiana re-drew its map to remedy the discrimination, creating a second Black opportunity district, white voters sued and claimed the map violated their Constitutional rights. The Supreme Court sided with the challengers in this second lawsuit, significantly weakening the protections of the Voting Rights Act for minority voters.
The ruling has seriously undermined the Voting Rights Act and the ability of Black, Latino, and other minority communities to achieve equal opportunity in voting.
Please attribute the following statement to MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund) President and General Counsel Thomas A. Saenz:
“Justice Alito’s majority opinion is so profoundly misleading that it fails the most basic test of honesty and propriety. Claiming fidelity to longstanding Supreme Court precedent while gutting that precedent so thoroughly as to render it unrecognizable demonstrates an appalling lack of candor, which threatens the institutional legitimacy of the Court.
“The traditional application of the established ‘totality of the circumstances’ test under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act always leads to a ‘strong inference of racial discrimination’ precisely because the test is a voting-tailored application of the Court’s Arlington Heights test for circumstantial proof of racial intent in other constitutional contexts. Alito’s refusal to acknowledge that parallelism is either obtuse or disingenuous.
“Finally, failing to recognize in 2026 that partisan advantage is a goal often wholly entangled with race is simply risible. Under our Constitution, when a party so completely alienates a racial minority, that party should redouble its efforts to achieve support from that group, not be handed a free pass to discriminate against that racial group in the name of party advancement.”
Please attribute the following statement to MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund) Vice President of Litigation Nina Perales:
“The Supreme Court's decision blesses racially discriminatory gerrymandering, and dismantles the legal protections for minority voters as we become a more important voice in the country's politics. The Supreme Court decision openly invites states to dilute minority voting strength, and undermines our democracy.”