On April 29, 2026, the Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais that significantly weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the central legal mechanism used for decades to prevent states from drawing congressional maps that dilute the voting power of Black, Latino, and other minority voters. The ruling reworked a 40-year-old legal test, raised the evidentiary bar for voters of color challenging discriminatory maps, and cleared the way for states to eliminate majority-minority districts that had previously been required under federal law. Within days of the decision, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi called special legislative sessions to redraw their congressional maps. Tennessee eliminated the only majority-Black congressional district in the state. Florida passed a new map that analysts project will shift up to four House seats from Democrats to Republicans. Nine states in total have redrawn their maps in the months since the ruling. The new maps will be used in the November 2026 midterm elections.
What Section 2 Did and How Callais Changed It
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits any voting rule, procedure, or district map that results in the denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race or color. For redistricting, the key legal tool for enforcing Section 2 was established by the Supreme Court in Thornburg v. Gingles in 1986. The Gingles test set out three preconditions that minority voters had to meet to prove their voting power was being diluted: first, that the minority group was large and geographically compact enough to form a majority in a single district; second, that the minority group votes cohesively as a bloc; and third, that the white majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to usually defeat the minority group’s preferred candidates. If all three conditions were met, states could be required to draw a majority-minority district. The Callais ruling, written by Justice Samuel Alito, made three changes to that test that collectively make it substantially harder for minority voters to bring a successful Section 2 claim. First, illustrative maps used to demonstrate that a minority district is feasible must now be drawn without using race, which legal scholars have noted is a circular requirement that undermines the purpose of the test. Second, plaintiffs must control for party affiliation when analyzing racial bloc voting. Third, to prove the third precondition, plaintiffs must show that voters engage in racial bloc voting that cannot be explained by partisan affiliation alone. Because race and party affiliation are closely correlated in the United States, the third requirement in particular has been described by voting rights attorneys as nearly impossible to satisfy in practice.
How the Case Got to the Court
The Callais case originated from a prior Supreme Court ruling. In Allen v. Milligan in 2023, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Alabama’s congressional map violated Section 2 by packing Black voters into a single district and ordered the state to draw a second majority-Black district. Louisiana was in a similar posture, having been ordered by lower courts to draw a second majority-Black congressional district following its own redistricting litigation. Louisiana drew the new district, creating Congressional District 6 as a majority-Black seat. A group of white voters in that district challenged the new map, arguing that drawing it with race as a predominant factor was itself an unconstitutional racial gerrymander under the Equal Protection Clause. The argument, in essence, was that the state’s compliance with the Voting Rights Act violated the Constitution. The Supreme Court, in the 6-3 Callais majority, agreed: it held that Section 2 of the VRA, properly interpreted, did not require Louisiana to create the second majority-Black district, so the state had no compelling interest that could justify using race as a predominant factor in drawing it. Writing in dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the majority had weaponized the Equal Protection Clause against the very law designed to enforce it. On June 2, 2026, the Court issued an unsigned 6-3 emergency order in Allen v. Milligan allowing Alabama to reinstate its original map, effectively reversing the practical result of the 2023 Milligan decision.
What States Have Done Since
The redistricting activity following the April 29 ruling has been rapid. Florida convened a special session and passed a new congressional map signed by Governor Ron DeSantis on May 4, 2026. The new Florida map eliminated majority-minority districts and, according to analyses by Ballotpedia and Votebeat, is projected to shift up to four House seats from Democrats to Republicans. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee called a special session beginning May 5. The Tennessee legislature passed a new map on May 7, and Lee signed it the same day. The new map splits and redraws the 9th Congressional District, which covers Memphis and most of Shelby County. The 9th was the state’s only majority-Black congressional district and its only Democratic-held seat. Alabama’s Governor Kay Ivey called a special session beginning May 4 to redraw the state’s congressional and state senate maps, now that the Callais ruling cleared the legal obstacle that had previously blocked Alabama from redrawing mid-decade. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves announced a special session beginning May 20 to redraw congressional maps, though those maps were not expected to take effect for the 2026 midterms. Nine states in total, including Alabama, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah, have redrawn maps since the ruling. Analyses of the combined effect of Florida’s and Tennessee’s new maps estimate they will shift five additional House seats to Republicans before the November 2026 elections.
What It Means for the 2026 Midterms
The maps drawn in the months following Callais will determine which congressional districts exist for the November 2026 midterm elections. Republicans currently hold a narrow House majority. The new maps in Florida and Tennessee alone are projected to add up to five seats to that majority before a single vote is cast. Legal challenges to the new maps have been filed in several states, but the Supreme Court’s June 2 emergency order allowing Alabama to reinstate its pre-Milligan map signals how the Court is likely to treat those challenges. The Voting Rights Act remains on the books, but the legal standard for proving a Section 2 violation under the new Callais framework is substantially higher than it was under the 40-year Gingles test. Civil rights organizations including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Campaign Legal Center, the League of Women Voters, and the Brennan Center for Justice have described the combined effect of the Callais ruling and the subsequent state redistricting activity as a structural reduction in the political representation of Black and Latino voters ahead of the most consequential midterm election in a generation.