WASHINGTON - On Wednesday, the nation's attention will be on arguments before the Supreme Court in a case that, on the surface, is about whether Louisiana should have two majority-Black congressional districts, one or maybe none.
But many legal observers say the U.S. Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, could use Louisiana v Callais to find the Voting Rights Act of 1965 unconstitutional or to dramatically change its "tests" that judges have for decades used to require states to draw congressional districts in which minority voters make up a majority. Such a change could effect elections all over the country.
Louisiana is arguing that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and its tests for when majority-minority districts could be used has allowed states to draw maps with race in mind, which contradicts the constitutional idea of equal treatment under the law.
"Race-based redistricting under Section 2 is principally unconstitutional because it inherently rests on a racial stereotype: that all voters of a particular race must -- by virtue of their membership in their racial class -- think alike, share the same interests, and prefer the same political candidates," the state Attorney General argued in an Oct. 3 brief.
The State of Louisiana argues that Black majority congressional districts are unconstitutional
But the law's defenders say the state is trying to gut one of the most important civil rights laws protecting minority voters from disenfranchisement.
"The upshot of Louisiana's burn-it-all-down approach is that it wants relief from any congressional or judicial scrutiny of its voting laws," wrote the Robinson litigants, a coalition of Black voters in their Oct. 3 brief. "Let there be no mistake: That was the situation that prevailed in Louisiana and nationwide for the 100 years before the VRA."
A group of Louisiana Black voters argue to keep the Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Callais litigants, a group of "non-minority" voters who are challenging the state's current map, wrote in their Sept. 17 brief: "Thirty years of such whipsawing arguments and decisions have aggrieved voters, states, and the judicial system. As Louisiana's experience shows, the process is the punishment."
The brief continued: "Racial gerrymandering, even for remedial purposes, may balkanize us into competing racial factions."
The Callais litigants argue that congressional districts drawn under the Voting Rights Act are racially gerrymandered and thus unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court's ruling on the case will be the culmination of a long and winding legal battle.
Congress in 1868 passed the 14th Amendment that guarantees "due process" and "equal protection" of the laws for all U.S. citizens.
Ratified in 1870, the 15th Amendment guarantees a citizen's right to vote regardless of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
Without legal oversight, White majorities for a century passed laws that kept African Americans from registering to vote.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed to forbid practices such as literacy tests and poll taxes that kept Black people off voter rolls. But some states continued to draw voting maps that isolated Black communities into districts with large White majorities, an effort to dilute their voting power.
The 1982 renewal of VRA added "tests" that judges could use to determine whether states had a history of discriminatory voting maps. For example: Did the state have a history of racially polarized voting? Did the state have cohesive minority communities that could reasonably fit in a single district?
In states where those tests identified discrimination, the law allowed minority voters to file lawsuits asking judges to order the creation of districts where minorities made up the majority of voters.
The last Census count found that about a third of Louisiana's residents are Black. Louisiana is a state where a White majority has never elected a Black candidate.
Complicated court battles
A GOP-majority Louisiana Legislature in March 2022 approved election maps that ensured five White Republicans and one Black Democrat went to Congress, as had the map approved a decade ago.
"It was a clear dilution of Black voting power to crack Black voters from around the state and pack them into one district," said Sarah Brannon, deputy director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project.
A group of Black voters led by Press Robinson, a former East Baton Rouge Parish School Board member, filed a legal challenge arguing the Legislature should create a second district with enough minority voters to give Blacks an opportunity to elect one of their own to Congress.
The Robinson litigants include an activist with Together Louisiana, a Public Service Commission member, the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice and the NAACP Louisiana State Conference.
Seven federal district and appellate judges agreed and gave the Legislature a deadline to draw new maps -- or the courts would.
Under that threat, Gov. Jeff Landry and the Legislature went back to the drawing board.
Wanting to keep enough White voters in the districts that elected House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Benton, and Rep. Julia Letlow, R-Start and a member of the House Appropriations Committee, legislators approved the current map in January 2024, which redrew then-Rep. Garret Graves’ 6th Congressional District into one that linked Black communities from Baton Rouge to Lafayette to Shreveport.
Two weeks later, a dozen voters who described themselves as “nonblack” filed a lawsuit in Monroe arguing that the Legislature’s map is racially gerrymandered.
Phillip Callais, of Brusly, is the first name on a list of a dozen litigants who include a conservative publisher and columnist, a Trump delegate at the Republican Party National Convention, an Ascension Parish GOP leader, and a former congressional candidate from Lafayette.
Two of the three judges on a federal panel in April 2024 ruled that the two Black majority districts amounted to a racial gerrander that "violates the Equal Protection Clause" in the 14th Amendment. The third judge said the maps had allowable political motivation.
The Supreme Court stayed proceedings in May 2024, thereby allowing the election of Rep. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, in the disputed second majority-Black district.
In March, the nine justices heard arguments on how to balance Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the Equal Protection clause, which forbids government taking actions based on race. Originally, Louisiana was defending the map.
But, rather than ruling on that question, the high court took the rare step of asking for new arguments on whether the Voting Rights Act violated the 14th or 15th Amendments of the Constitution. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said that opened the door for Louisiana to make its original argument, which is that judges shouldn't be able to order states to redistrict in the first place.
What their arguments will be
Submitted briefs indicate the points the three parties want to make before the court this week.
The Robinson litigants argue that Section 2's "genius is its flexibility" in that it does not demand racial targets but allows states "leeway" to create compliant districts using traditional redistricting criteria.
Louisiana counters that the VRA unjustly broadened the idea of intentional discrimination to include vote dilution, which it argues is not based on a finding that prejudicial treatment occurred, such as being denied the right to vote.
And the Callais litigants contend that the "tests" associated with Section 2 entrench race-based thinking "long after intentional discrimination withers away."
After Wednesday's hearing, it is not clear how long the Supreme Court will take to issue a ruling. But it should render a decision before June 2026.