Supreme Court Hears Pivotal Louisiana Redistricting Case Ahead of 2026 Midterms

This is big.

One of the unintended consequences of the Voting Rights Act was the creation of legislative districts by race, which clearly violates the Equal Protection Clause.

Republicans could gain 19 or more seats alone from the VRA districts being abolished.

🚨 BREAKING: The Supreme Court is today hearing oral arguments on abolishing VOTING RIGHTS ACT districts, drawn for minorities to favor Democrats

Democrats are panicking because Republicans could gain 19 or more seats ALONE from the VRA districts being abolished.

Clarence… pic.twitter.com/S3R9bosnZC

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 15, 2025

Greg Price: Today, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Louisiana v. Callais, which will decide if mandating that states draw congressional districts based on race under the Voting Rights Act is constitutional.

For years, Democrats have taken red states to court to mandate that they draw majority black congressional districts like this one at the center of today’s case that stretches all the way from Shreveport to New Orleans.

It’s intentional discrimination.

It’s a case that reflects the broader redistricting fight, which has nothing to do with the “evils of gerrymandering” but the fact that the Democratic Party– by counting illegal aliens in the census, undercounting the populations of red states, and weaponizing the VRA– has given themselves more political power than they deserve.

And they’re terrified because these pillars of Democratic power may soon be coming to an end.

Listen live here.

https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/1978489577766555903

Supreme Court hears pivotal Louisiana redistricting case ahead of 2026 midterms
At issue was whether the state’s congressional map, updated twice since the 2020 census, is an illegal racial gerrymander

By Breanne Deppisch, Fox News, October 15, 2025:

LISTEN LIVE: Supreme Court hears high-stakes case on voting rights

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The Voting Rights Act hangs in the balance as the Supreme Court hears arguments in a legal battle over Louisiana’s congressional map that could impact the nation.
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The Supreme Court is rehearing oral arguments Wednesday in a case centered on Louisiana’s use of race as a factor when drawing its congressional map — a closely watched legal fight that some fear could be used to weaken protections under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

The case, Louisiana v. Callais, was first heard by the high court in March. It focuses on whether Louisiana’s updated 2024 congressional map, which added a second majority-Black district, constitutes an unconstitutional “racial gerrymander.” The outcome could shape how states nationwide apply the Voting Rights Act in redistricting battles ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Justices ordered both parties to reappear in court in the fall to take up additional arguments before the case is decided. They also asked parties to submit additional briefs answering whether the state’s “intentional creation” of the second majority-minority district runs afoul of the 14th and 15th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

The court’s ruling could have a major impact on voters ahead of the 2026 midterms, with critics warning that a decision favoring the state may further erode safeguards for minority voters under the Voting Rights Act.

JUDGES SAY THEY’LL REDRWA LOUISIANA CONGRESSIONAL MAP THEMSELVES IF LAWMAKERS CAN’T
Protesters hold signs saying “Stop Discriminatory Voting”

Black Louisiana voters and civil rights advocates rally outside the Supreme Court calling for a fair congressional map in Louisiana v. Callais on March 24, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Legal Defense Fund)

Janai Nelson, a lawyer for the NAACP arguing on behalf of Black voters, argued Wednesday that siding with Louisiana’s request to reverse S.B. 8 would be a “staggering reversal of precedent,” and a ruling that she argued “would throw maps across the country into chaos.”

“If we take Louisiana as one example, every congressional member who is Black was elected from a Voting Rights Act-opportunity district,” she told the justices. “We only have the diversity that we see across the south, for example, because of litigation that forced the creation of opportunity districts under the Voting Rights Act.”

“Every justice in Louisiana has been elected through a VRA opportunity district, and nearly all legislative representatives have been elected in those same districts. So Louisiana alone is an example of how important it is to have Section 2 continue to be enforced to create these opportunities,” she continued.

Invalidating Section 2 in Louisiana “would be pretty catastrophic,” Nelson added.

Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett signaled skepticism about keeping Section 2 of the VRA in place as is. They each pressed Nelson about whether there should be a time duration limit on the intentional use of race in drawing voting districts under the law — prompting Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to jump in to clarify that, since the VRA is derived from the 15th Amendment, it does not have a time limit.

Louisiana, for its part, has abruptly changed its position since March.

Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill asked the Supreme Court in August to invalidate the 2024 map — an about-face from its earlier position — and urged the justices to rule more broadly that race-based redistricting is unconstitutional.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill leaves the Supreme Court in Washington after oral arguments in a separate social media case on March 18, 2024. (REUTERS/Bonnie Cash)

Murrill said that the 14th Amendment “commands that the government ‘may never use race as a stereotype or negative.’ Yet race-based redistricting rests on an invidious stereotype: that all minorities, by virtue of their membership in their racial class, think alike and share the same interests and voting preferences.”

“Race-based redistricting is fundamentally contrary to our Constitution,” she said.

A group of Black voters and civil rights groups, meanwhile, urged the court to leave in place the newer map, which it said “comport[s] with the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment guarantees of equal voting rights and the VRA’s requirements.”