The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Wednesday morning in the Louisiana case centered around when it is necessary to incorporate race as a factor in drawing congressional maps and how it should be executed fairly.
Louisiana v. Callais discusses whether a 2024 congressional map — known as SB8 and adopted by the state Legislature — relied too heavily on race.
The map was the result of a lawsuit against the state brought by Black voters that argued a 2022 congressional map diluted their votes by featuring only one Black-majority district of the six allotted to the state.
A group of non-Black voters brought the lawsuit against SB8, citing racial gerrymandering, and a three-judge district court agreed with the plaintiffs, prohibiting the maps from being used in congressional elections.
But in May 2024, the Supreme Court paused the lower courts’ ruling and allowed the map to be used by the state.
The state and the Black voters who brought the case to court in 2022 appealed the three-judge decision to the Supreme Court, which then set oral arguments.
Race and politics have a complicated connection here. When SB8 was drawn and passed, creating a second Black-majority district, it was done under Republican control of both the Legislature and the governor’s office.
Louisiana says it had to draw the map to comply with the Voting Rights Act after earlier federal court rulings said its old map likely violated the law.
Opponents argue the new map went too far, using race as the dominant factor.
If lawmakers ignore race too much when drawing maps, then they risk violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which “prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race.” But if they focus too much on race, they risk violating the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.
Louisiana’s argument
The state’s attorney, Jorge Aguinaga, told the justices on Wednesday that it finds itself in a dilemma that the Supreme Court can only resolve with three steps.
“First, you should reverse on standing grounds because the only theory of harm in the red brief is that our Black representative of District 6 will play into racial stereotypes by favoring the Black voters of District 6,” the state’s attorney Aguinaga said, meaning the only harm the plaintiffs claim is that having a Black representative from a majority-Black district will “play into racial stereotypes.” The state argues that the argument is speculative, not a concrete injury.
He then said the court should “reverse on racial predominance, because the district court wrongly assumed that our intentional creation of a majority Black district ... automatically established racial predominance.”
Lastly, he urged the justices to “reverse on the ‘good reasons’ inquiry,” arguing that the lower court wrongly dismissed earlier rulings that, in the state’s view, gave lawmakers a solid basis to consider race when redrawing the map to comply with the Voting Rights Act.
“We have two Article III court decisions that say the VRA likely requires Louisiana to draw a second majority Black district. Those were the facts presented to us,” he said.
If the Supreme Court narrows the interpretation of Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, it could hand Republicans the majority vote in the House of Representatives, according to The New York Times:
“Without Section 2, which has been interpreted to require the creation of majority-minority districts, Republicans could eliminate upward of a dozen Democratic-held districts across the South.”
The justices seemed to be grappling with the line between compliance and overcorrection, not whether the law itself is valid.
“If states consider race too little, they can be sued under Section 2. If they consider race too much, they can be sued under the Equal Protection Clause. We’re asking for breathing room.”
Justice Elena Kagan said states have to have the freedom to fulfill their duties.
“This state used its breathing room to say, ‘after we litigated this and we litigated this again and we knew we were going to lose because six Fifth Circuit judges had told us so, it was time to get on with things and draw our map that served our political objectives.’”
Did the state use its ‘breathing room’ appropriately?
Edward Greim represented the white voters who accused SB8 of racial gerrymandering and argued before the justices that the state took their role in complying with the Voting Rights Act too far.
“From the very beginning of this Court’s racial gerrymandering jurisprudence, it was born in an error where states were drawing majority-minority districts allegedly to comply with the VRA, whether it was DOJ pressure under Section 5 or fear of Section 2 liability,” he argued, emphasizing that the legislature made it a political problem by concluding that a second majority Black district was the solution.
“That then caused the problem of losing an incumbent and having to choose who is going to be lost,” he said, referring to the non-Black voters he represented.
But Stuart Naifeh, the attorney representing the Black voters and civil rights groups supporting Louisiana’s new congressional map, said the lawmakers used their “breathing room” accordingly.
“It was perfectly appropriate after two federal courts had found that Louisiana had likely violated Section 2, that the state sought to comply with those rulings and that it exercised its authority to protect favored incumbents and unite preferred communities of interest,” he said.
States have room to balance racial fairness with political and practical concerns when drawing maps, Naifeh also pointed out, when Justice Neil Gorsuch questioned the Legislature’s reasoning behind “compactness and contiguity and traditional districting principles” during the creation of SB8.
“States are not constrained,” Naifeh responded. “This Court has said repeatedly that states don’t have to draw the compact districts that a court would impose. They can take other considerations into account, including political ones.”
How the case could have a national impact
This isn’t the first time the Supreme Court has sat for Louisiana v. Callais. The justices heard arguments in the last term in March; re-arguments are rare.
If the justices rule in favor of Louisiana, it could lead other GOP-controlled states to redraw their districts, likely benefiting Republicans, according to CNN:
“Because race and politics are often closely intertwined, a ruling in the case could change the balance of power in the House after the 2026 midterm. ... And because it’s Louisiana, the case could also affect the districts of key House leaders, notably Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise — both Republicans who represent the state in Congress.”
The White House previously filed a brief, asking the Supreme Court to uphold the latest district court decision, and on Wednesday, the justices heard from principal deputy solicitor general Hashim M. Mooppan on behalf of the Trump administration.
Mooppan sided with the non-Black voters, calling the state’s map a case of “reverse partisan gerrymander.”