All roads lead to the Supreme Court

The mid-decade redistricting push puts democracy at risk.

By Tianna Mays and Pooja Chaudhuri

A year from now, the U.S. will be deep in the midterm election cycle, traditionally a chance for voters to hold political leaders accountable. But that might not hold true as more states move to rig electoral maps and voting laws with tacit support from the Supreme Court.

Vote- and election-rigging efforts are alarming not only for their brazenness but also because it is becoming increasingly difficult to stop them. The legal guardrails that once protected voting rights and fair representation are rapidly eroding, leaving voters with fewer tools to fight attempts to weaken representation based on race or partisanship.

On Wednesday the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Louisiana v. Callais, a case regarding equal representation that the court partially heard earlier this year. This time, justices will consider a much broader question that could radically weaken Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, one of the few remaining tools preventing intentional and effects-based vote dilution. Typically, the court does not rehear cases. But several of the justices have, unusually, indicated interest in the following question: Whether Louisiana’s decision to intentionally create a second majority-minority congressional district violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment or the 15th Amendment’s prohibition on racial discrimination in voting.

The case is rooted in Robinson v. Ardoin, in which a federal court concluded that Louisiana’s 2022 congressional map likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by diluting Black voter power. In response, Louisiana passed a new map that contained a second majority-Black district.

But a group of mostly white opponents quickly challenged the new map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander and managed to convince the majority of a panel of three judges that they were right.

In a troubling twist, Louisiana joined the Callais plaintiffs, arguing that any race-based redistricting, even when undertaken to comply with Section 2, is unconstitutional.

Lawmakers wrote Section 2 to confront real, present-day racial harms, and courts have long held that its remedies must be local, fact-intensive, and functional to ensure vote dilution is narrowly tailored.

Hundreds of jurisdictions have drawn maps to comply with Section 2 in the 60 years since the Voting Rights Act passed Congress. Not one court has held that a state or jurisdiction’s compliance with Section 2 violates the Constitution, and the Supreme Court has always affirmed its constitutionality. In particular, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who wrote the court’s opinion in Shelby County v. Holder, expressly stated “[o]ur decision in no way affects the permanent, nationwide ban on racial discrimination in voting found in §2.”

Just last year in Allen v. Milligan, the court reaffirmed that race can be considered in fashioning a Section 2 remedial map as long as racial considerations do not trump other traditional redistricting principles, including compactness, contiguity, and respect for political boundaries. But all that hangs in the balance with this case.

As the court appears ready to hear arguments on a question that it need not have taken up, state legislatures are accelerating their efforts on the ground.

That push began in July, when Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, sent a letter to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton arguing that longstanding “coalition” and “opportunity” districts designed to allow communities of color to elect their candidates of choice are unconstitutional. Days later, President Donald Trump publicly encouraged Abbott to redraw the state’s map to help Republicans secure more seats in 2026.

On Aug. 29, Texas adopted a new map dismantling five such districts, including the 9th Congressional District in Houston, a seat long represented by Rep. Al Green, a Black man. The new map fractures the community and draws Green out of his own district. In other words, Texas understood Trump’s assignment. Other states are following suit. Missouri approved a map that splits a Kansas City-based district, currently represented by Emmanuel Cleaver, a Black Democrat, into three GOP-leaning ones. Florida, Ohio, and others are exploring similar redistricting plays.

Because the high court is unwilling to intervene, the incentives for gerrymandering and voting rights abuses are accelerating. A redistricting arms race is now underway with some Democratic-led states considering mid-decade redraws of their own to defend against GOP gerrymanders.

This is the legal and political landscape in which Louisiana v. Callais will be decided.

The Supreme Court faces a choice. It can rule narrowly on the facts, reaffirming decades of settled law recognizing that the Voting Rights Act is a vital tool for addressing ongoing and localized racial vote dilution. Or it can deliver a sweeping decision that would effectively strip the Voting Rights Act of its power to ensure fair representation for all Americans.

The stakes are high. This ruling won’t just shape one congressional map. It could rewrite the rules of representation in America for generations.

Tianna Mays is the legal director at Democracy Defenders Fund, and Pooja Chaudhuri is the deputy legal director.

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