For the official Louisiana v. Callais, NO. 24-109 (and 24-110), please visit:
BREAKING NEWS: Supreme Court Rules 6-3 That Louisiana's Majority-Black Congressional District Is an Unconstitutional Racial Gerrymander
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Wednesday, April 29, 2026, that Louisiana's 2024 congressional map, which created a second majority-Black district, constitutes an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The case is Louisiana v. Callais.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Justice Elena Kagan wrote the dissent, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The ruling fell along partisan lines.
The majority held that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act did not require Louisiana to draw a second majority-Black district, and that without that requirement, the state had no compelling interest to justify its use of race in drawing the map. Alito wrote: "Correctly understood, Section 2 does not impose liability at odds with the Constitution, and it should not have imposed liability on Louisiana for its 2022 map. Compliance with Section 2 thus could not justify the State's use of race-based redistricting here."
The case originated from Louisiana's post-2020 Census redistricting process. Black voters, who make up roughly 30% of Louisiana's population, had sued in 2022 arguing they were underrepresented. A federal judge found the previous map likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in Robinson v. Ardoin. Louisiana then drew a new map — enacted as SB8 in 2024 — creating District 6, which stretched roughly 250 miles from Shreveport through Alexandria and Lafayette to Baton Rouge. A subsequent group of non-Black voters challenged that map, arguing it relied too heavily on race. A three-judge panel agreed in 2024, setting the stage for the Supreme Court's review.
The case was first argued before the Supreme Court in March 2025, and a rare second round of oral arguments followed in October 2025. The ruling does not overturn Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act entirely but narrows how it can be applied.
Kagan wrote in dissent: "I dissent because the Court betrays its duty to faithfully implement the great statute Congress wrote. I dissent because the Court's decision will set back the foundational right Congress granted of racial equality in electoral opportunity." She also wrote that the decision "threatens a half-century's worth of gains in voting equality" and that "under the Court's new view of Section 2, a State can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens' voting power."
WHERE THE COVERAGE SEPARATES
The left argues that the ruling effectively guts the Voting Rights Act even though it leaves Section 2 formally intact, rewriting the legal test so that partisan gerrymandering interests can now shield maps from Voting Rights Act challenges. Left-leaning sources note that advocacy group Black Voters Matter described the Voting Rights Act as "the guardrail" and warned that its functional demise leaves minority voters without protection in states that lack robust voting rights provisions in their own constitutions. Axios projects the ruling could boost Republican House seat totals by an estimated 19 seats relative to 2024 maps, and NPR frames the decision as part of a broader conservative Court pattern of dismantling the Voting Rights Act since 2013.
The right argues that the ruling correctly enforces the Equal Protection Clause by preventing states from using race as the predominant factor in redistricting absent a genuine legal compulsion to do so. Right-leaning sources emphasize that the Robinson plaintiffs' illustrative maps would have placed Representative Julia Letlow in a district with more than twice as many registered Democrats as Republicans, and that the racial polarization analysis used to support the original Section 2 claim did not control for partisan preference. RedState highlights Alito's framing that the Voting Rights Act "is not designed to punish for the past" but "works to ensure a better future," and frames the ruling as a check on what it calls redistricting manipulation, rather than a rollback of minority voting rights.
RELIABILITY SCORE: 82%
All four sources agree on the core facts: the 6-3 vote, the case name, the authorship of the majority opinion and dissent, the constitutional basis of the ruling (racial gerrymander under the Equal Protection Clause), and the fact that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was not eliminated but narrowed. The shared factual foundation is strong. The divergence lies almost entirely in framing, emphasis, and political projection — not in the underlying facts. The score is slightly below the top tier because the projected electoral impact figures (Axios's 19-seat estimate and Fox News's 12-seat estimate from separate advocacy groups) are single-source claims drawn from partisan advocacy organizations, not confirmed across both sides, and thus were not included in the shared facts above.
SOURCES
Left-leaning:
Right-leaning: